Ash - The Emergence of Gestalt Theory - Experimental Psychology in Germany, 1890-1920 - PHD Thesis

INFO RM ATIO N TO USERS
This reproduction was made from a copy o f a document sent to us for microfilming.
While the most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce
this document, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the
quality o f the material submitted.
The following explanation o f techniques is provided to help clarify markings or

notations which may appear on this reproduction.
1.The sign or target for pages apparently lacking from the document
photographed is Missing Page(s) . I f it was possible to obtain the missing
page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This
may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages
to assure complete continuity.
2. When an image on the film is obliterated w ith a round black mark, it is an

indication o f either blurred copy because o f movement during exposure,
duplicate copy, or copyrighted materials that should not have been filmed. For
blurred pages, a good image o f the page can be found in the adjacent frame. I f
copyrighted materials were deleted, a target note w ill appear listing the pages in
the adjacent frame.
3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., is part o f the material being photographed,
a definite method o f sectioning the material has been followed. It is
customary to begin filming at the upper left hand comer o f a large sheet and to
continue from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. I f necessary,
sectioning is continued againbeginning below the first row and continuing on
until complete.
4. For illustrations that cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by xerographic

means, photographic prints can be purchased at additional cost and inserted
into your xerographic copy. These prints are available upon request from the
Dissertations Customer Services Department.
5. Some pages in any document may have indistinct print. In all cases the best
available copy has been filmed.
University
Microfilms
International
300 N.Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
8303408
Ash, Mitchell Graham
THE EMERGENCE OF GESTALT THEORY: EXPERIMENTAL

PSYCHOLOGY IN GERMANY 1890-1920
Harvard University PhJD. 1982
University
Microfilms
International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M I 48106
Copyright 1982
by
Ash, Mitchell Graham
All Rights Reserved
R eproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
H A R V A R D U N IV E R S IT Y
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
T H E S IS A C C E P TA N C E C E R T IF IC A T E
(T o be placed in Original Copy )
The undersigned, appointed by the
Division
Department o f H is t o r y
Committee
have examined a thesis endtled
THE EMERGENCE OF GESTALT THEORY:
EXPERIM ENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN GERMANY 1 8 9 0 -1 9 2 0
presented by Mitchell Graham Ash
candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and hereby

certify that it is worthy of acceptance.
Signature
Typed nan D o m ld ..F .l.e m iB .g ..../
Signature
Typed name
Signatztre .
Typed name
D a te ....
The Emergence of Gestalt Theory: Experimental Psychology
in Germany 1890-1920
A thesis presented
by
Mitchell Graham Ash
to
The Department of History
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of
History
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
September, 1982
<> 1982 by Mitchell Graham Ash
All rights reserved.
THE EMERGENCE OF GESTALT THEORY: EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN GERMANY
1890 - 1920
Abstract
Existing accounts of the work of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and
Kurt Koffka generally depict the emergence of their so-called "Berlin school"
of Gestalt theory as a reaction to inadequacies in then-current psycholo
gical theories. In contrast to them, this dissertation sets the origins
of Gestalt theory in a broader social and intellectual context, and thus
shows how the structure of the German universities shaped the development
of experimental psychology in that country.
The social and institutional background of Gestalt theory is present
ed in part one. Experimental psychology in Germany was institutionalized
as a specialty of philosophy. During their training under Carl Stumpf at
the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin, Wertheimer, Kohler
and Koffka learned that the task of experimental psychology was to solve
philosophical problems. However, leading philosophers argued that this
could not be done; the new discipline thus faced a legitimation crisis.
It also faced a scientific identity problem, the dimensions of which
are examined in part two. Relevant to the emergence of Gestalt theory were
the challenge of Machiaa positivism in physics and philosophy, the mecha
nism-vital ism controversy in biology, the revolt against positivism in
philosophy, the tension between "physiological" and "psychological" cate
gories in sensory psychology, and the difficulties posed by the problems
of thought and form.
Part three describes the Gestalt theorists' response to this com-
- iii -
plex orientation problem. The core of that response was Wertheimer's new
epistemology, immanent structuralism, and his model of science, which
united phenomenological observation and a hypothetical-deductive mode of
theory construction. Koffka and Kohler then applied and extended Wert
heimer's model to problems in perception and animal learning. Finally,
Kohler extended Wertheimer's epistemology to the external world in Die phy-
sischen Gestalten. The Gestalt theorists tried not to separate psychology
from philosophy, but to transform psychology so that it could fulfill the
philosophical tasks set for it in Germany while retaining scientific methods.
The dissertation is based in part upon the records of the Berlin
psychological institute in the Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Merseburg, DDR,
correspondence of Wolfgang Kohler in the archives of the Akademie der Wis-
senschaften der DDR, Berlin, and the papers of the Gestalt theorists in
various locations in the United States.
To my grandmother,
Betty Meltzer Loeb
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation has taken a long time to prepare, and so I have
incurred more than the usual number of debts. If I name here only some of
the people and institutions that have provided aid and encouragement along
the way, this is certainly not out of ingratitude, but only because a com
plete list would be longer than the dissertation.
Work on this project has been supported by a Krupp Foundation Fel
lowship from the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, a Fulbright
Scholarship from the Institute of International Education, New York and the
Fulbright-Kommission, Bonn, and a stipend from the Stiftung Luftbruckendank
of the Senate of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin. Archival research
and interviews in the United States were supported by grants from the Histo
ry of Psychology Foundation, Akron, Ohio, and the Charles Warren Center for
Studies in American History, Harvard University. Many thanks to all of
these donors for their generosity.
The staffs of the archives and libraries listed in the bibliography
all provided expert assistance, but an especially good feeling remains in
memory for the friendliness and competent helpfulness of John Popplestone,
Marion White MacPherson and their coworkers and the Archives of the History
of American Psychology, Akron, Ohio, and John Miller, archivist at the Uni
versity of Akron library. Thanks as well to the staff of the interlibrary
loan department of the library of the Free University of Berlin for endur
ing my constant badgering with such good grace.
Special thanks are due to three people who have better reasons and
qualifications for their concern with this history than I. Prof. Mary Henle
- vi -
provided help in the quest for documents pertaining to Wolfgang Kohler,
and valuable intellectual aid as well. Dr. Molly Harrower shared much
knowledge about Kurt Koffka, giving generously of her time, her warmth and
her joy in living in the process. Prof. Michael Wertheimer allowed me
to work with his collection of documents about his father, Mav Wertheimer,
shared additional research material, and helped in other ways. The conver
sations we have had have been a genuine pleasure for me.
Discussion with and help from older and younger colleagues have been
important all along the way.- Profs. Erwin Hiebert and Edwin Newman taught
me about the theory of perception and its history, Profs. H. Stuart Hughes,
Wolf Lepenies and Fritz Ringer offered support and encouragement, and Prof.
Wolfram Fischer lent a sustaining hand. Warmest thanks also to the small but
flourishing band of scholars in the history of the behavioral sciences for
welcoming me into their midst with preprints, reprints, excellent discus
sion and much good cheer. In the United States and Canada I think especial
ly of Wolfgang Bringmann, Josef Brozek, Kurt Danziger, David Leary, David
Lindenfeld, Michael Sokal and William Woodward, and in Germany of Ulfried
Geuter, Walter Gummersbach, Siegfried Jaeger and Irmirgard Staeuble. Special
thanks to Dozent Dr. Lothar Sprung and to Dr. Helga Sprung for collegial
aid far beyond any call of duty, and for friendship across national and
disciplinary boundaries. Of the many others with whom I have enjoyed va
luable discussions, but whom I have not mentioned here, I ask forgiveness.
Peter Guo (nee Goldberg), typist extraordinary, "shaped the text" -
his description - with patience, skill and elan - quite an achievement, since
English is not his native tongue. Alisonr.Smith helped with the completion
of formalities by mail, and arranged to have the dissertation bound in Cam
bridge. Thanks to both of them.
Stuart Jenks, Werner Duchstein and Christiane Hartnack have given
me support of another, more personal kind. My gratitude to them is deeper
than words can express. My grandmother wanted very much to see this thesis
through to completion. Now it is too late to offer her more than a few
words of dedication.
Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Prof. Donald Fleming,
for having faith in this project, and in me, for so long. His intellectual,
moral and practical support have sustained the work throughout, especially
in its final stages.
Mitchell 6 . Ash
Berlin, summer 1982
Ta b l e of Co n t e n t s
Abstract iii
Acknowledgments vi
Table of Contents ix
List of Tables and Figures xii
Introduction xiii
Part One: The Social and Institutional Setting
1. The Problem '1
2. The Academic Environment 3
3. The Institutionalization of ExperimentalPsychology:

Wilhelm Wundt 15
4. The Institutionalization of ExperimentalPsychology:

From Single Institute to Scientific Community 24
5. Carl Stumpf and the Berlin Institute 30
6. Stumpfs Conception of Psychology and the Training

of Scientists in Berlin 45
7. Problems of Location and Legitimation:

The Philosophers Protest 63
8. The Problem Restated 81
Part Two: The Intellectual Setting
1. The Situation 85
2. The Heritage of Sensory Physiology:

Helmholtz versus Hering 87
3. Conceptual Shifts in Experimental Psychology:

Wundt, Mach and After 109
- ix -
- X -
4. Revisions of Mind: Bergson, James, Dilthey, Husserl 136
5. The Identity of Science: Debates in Physicsand Biology 169
6. The Challenge from Within, I:

The Problems of Recognition and Thought 190
7. The Challenge from Within, II:

The Problem of Form and its Implications 206
8 . The Situation Reassessed 240
Part Three; The Emergence and Development of Gestalt Theory, 1910-1920
1. Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler:

Social Background, Academic Training and Early Research 245
a. Max Wertheimer 245
b. Kurt Koffka 255
c. Wolfgang Kohler 264
2. The Birth of Gestalt Theory: Wertheimer in Frankfurt

1910-1914 274
a. The Setting 275
b. The Gestalt Orientation Emerges 276
c. The Phi Phenomenon: A Model of Theory andPractice 284
d. The Birth of Gestalt Theory 299
3. Conceptual Next Steps by Koffka and Kohler, 1912-1920 307
a. Koffka: First Proposals for Theory Construction 307
b. Kohler: Critique of the "Constancy Hypothesis" 315
c. The Transformation in Perceptual Theory:

...A .-Research Program Takes Shape 325
d. Koffka versus Benussi: The TransformationSyste

matized 338
e. "The Method of Natural Science" Clarified, Defended

and Applied 361
4. Insights and Confirmations: Kohler on Tenerife 374
a. The Institutional Setting 375
b. The Intellectual Background 379
c. "Intelligence Tests" on Chimpanzees:

The Work and its Initial Reception 384
d. Doing Science in Wartime: Cooperation andCom

petition 406
e. Against Sophisticated Negativism:

Experiments in Animal Perception 413
f. The End of the Station 427
5. The Step of Natural Philosophy: vie vhysischenGestalten 430
a. Identity and Aim of the Work 431
b. The Ehrenfels Criteria and Physics 436
c. The Psychophysical Problem: KohlersIsomorphism

and its Implications 451
d. The Postulate Applied: Kohler's Approachto

Theory Construction 460
e. The Law of Pragnanz and the Second Law:

Reason in the Appearances 471
f. Summary: Problematic Transformations 479
6. Further Implications and Hopes for the Future:

Wertheimer in Berlin 488
Conclusion 506
Essay on Sources 521
Bibliography 536
Name Index 597
Subject Index 607
List of Tables and Figures
Table one: Psychological institutes in Germany, 1879-1914 26
Table two: Budgetary development, personnel and space allot

ments for five psychological institutes inGermany,
1879-1914 42-43
Figure 1 :Subjective grouping 218
Figure 2 :Stronger subjectivegrouping 218
Figure 3 :Subjective contour 218
Figure 4 :Ambiguous drawing 222
Figure 5 :Muller-Lyer figure 223
Figure 6 :Dot cross 237
Figure 7 :Set-ups for apparentmotionexperiments:

phi phenomenon 290
Figure 8 : "interference" phenomenon 290
Figure 9 : dual part motion 290
Figure 10: Set-ups for alpha and beta motion 333
Figure 11: Dot triangle 364
Figure 12: "Genuine achievements" and "imitations of chance" 385
Figure 13: Rope and bars task 397
Figure 14: Test schema for "structural functions" 418
Figure 15: Goblet figure (figure and ground) 462
Figure 16: Uniform magnetic field distributed by an electric

current in a straight conductor 470
Figure 17: Circular current in uniform field of force 472
Figure 18: String on soap film 475
Figure 19: External angles of a polygon 496
- xii -
In t r o d u c t i o n
In the second decade of this century, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang
Kohler and Kurt Koffka developed what they believed to be a new way of
understanding psychological phenomena, which they called "Gestalt theory".
By the early 1920s the basic principles of the so-called "Berlin school"
of Gestalt theory were developed. Its advocates clearly believed that
they had discovered not only a new approach to psychology, but the germ
of a new scientific world view as well. By 1967, the year of Kohler's
death, the Berlin school had long ceased to exist as such; but its influence
is still being felt in numerous ways today, both inside and outside the
orbit of academic psychology.
Why did this school of thought emerge when it did? In her obituary
for Wolfgang Kohler, Mary Henle suggests the following answer:
Psychology, at the time of the emergence of Gestalt psychology,

was deeply involved in what, in Germany, was called the Crisis
of Science. Science seemed unable to deal with - seemed to lack
interest in - the most significant human problems. Che popular
solution had been the abandonment of natural science altogether
.... Wertheimer and Kohler proposed that the difficulty was
not with science itself, but with the current conception of na
tural science among psychologists ....*
Seen in this way, the history of Gestalt theory is primarily a history of
scientific ideas in psychology. In his book The Decline of the German
Mandarins, the historian Fritz Ringer suggests a somewhat different inter
pretation. The "Crisis of Science", he argues, was part of a larger pro
blem faced by German intellectuals at the turn of the century, which he
1 Mary Henle, "Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)," Yearbook of the American

Philosophical Society, 1968, pp. 141-42.
- xni -
calls the problem, or crisis of modernity. German academics in particular
faced the problem of justifying an ideology of humanistic Bildung developed
in an earlier period against the changes brought about by rapid industriali
zation, especially against encroachments by natural scientists and engineers
upon the privilege of higher education. In this situation many academics .
employed holistic and humanistic world views as a form of self-defense.
Gestalt theory, in Ringer's view, was a "modernist" attempt to bring together

2
the demands of science and the hopes of humanism. The purpose of this
dissertation is to set the originsand early development of Gestalt theory
in their social and intellectual contexts, and in the process to synthesize
and further develop both of these interpretations.
The concentration upon the origins and early development of Gestalt
theory determines the chronological boundaries indicated in the title.
This periodization is rooted in both the intellectual and the social-histo
rical dimensions of the topic. In 1890 Christian von Ehrenfels introduced
the Gestalt category into systematic psychology in his essay "fiber Gestalt-
qualitaten". With the publication of Wolfgang Kohler's book Die physi-
schen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationaren Zustand in 1920, both the concept
ual transformations that the Gestalt theorists introduced with the aid of
that category and their implications for psychology and philosophy had
become clear, at least in outline. The year 1890 also marked the founding
of the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, one
of the first steps in the organization of experimenting psychologists in
Germany into a scientific community. That community was the forum for
2 Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Aca
demic Community 1890-1933 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), esp. pp. 375
- XV -
the discussion of the issues that the Gestalt theorists sought to resolve.
Hence the reference to experimental psychology in the subtitle. In 1920
Carl Stumpf resigned the directorship of the Psychological Institute of
the University of Berlin and designated Wolfgang Kohler as his representa
tive on a temporary basis. Two years later Kohler succeeded to Stumpfs
professorship. With these events the Berlin school of Gestalt theory be-
came an institutional fact, and a new stage in its history began.
The history of Gestalt theory has been sketched numerous times al
ready. A chapter on it is practically de rigueur in historical or systema
tic textbooks in psychological theory. However, the authors of these chap
ters, especially in the case of more recent texts, are primarily interested
in giving undergraduates in psychology a theoretical overview of the sub
ject which they apparently do not receive elsewhere. Whether this purpose
4
can actually be achieved need not be discussed here. For the topic at
hand, the important point is clear: though some of these chapters include
more biographical and other historical details than others, none of them of
fers a full account of the development of Gestalt theory. Nor does any of
them attempt to grasp the full range of the context in which that theory
emerged. Instead they present summaries of what Gestalt theory stood for
3 Part of the price paid for this periodization is the exclusion of the
work of Kurt Lewin, a psychologist and philosopher of science who be
came a close coworker of the Berlin school in the 1920s, but who played
no demonstrable role in the early development of Gestalt theory.
4 For a discussion of this issue, see my essay "The Self-Presentation of

a Discipline: History of Psychology in the United States Between Pedagogy
and Scholarship," Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol. 7 (Dordrecht
& Boston, 1983), forthcoming. For the rather different uses of history
in German psychology, see Ulfried Geuters contribution to the same vo
lume, "The Uses of History for the Shaping of the Discipline: Observa
tions on German Psychology".
and what it has contributed to psychology in the eyes of the field's cur
rent practitioners. Such an approach may be sufficient for the pedagogic
al purposes involved. But it is obviously not the same as the sort of ac
count offered by intellectual historians or historians of science.
Ordinarily it would not be necessary to discuss these treatments
any further here. Unfortunately, however, they contain a number of fun
damental errors which must be dealt with, especially since they are the
most widely read accounts in English. The ancestor of many of these ac
counts is the treatment of Gestalt theory in the second edition of Edwin
G. Borings standard text, A History of Experimental Psychology. 3oring's
history has been subjected to thorough criticism for nearly twenty years;
there is no-need to repeat that criticism here.^ Suffice it to say that
the book is an attempt to construct and defend a tradition of "pure" scien
tific psychology uncontaminated by either philosophy or technology and to
present the history of that science as a continuous, linear progression
of great men, great ideas and inductively accumulated facts. His treat
ment of Gestalt theory is a rather forced effort to fit its history into
this mold.
Boring's strategy is to point to numerous "predecessors" and "anti
cipations" of Gestalt theory. Of the total of forty-one pages he devotes
5 See for example Robert M. Young, "Scholarship and the History of the
Behavioral Sciences," History of Science, 5 (1966), pp. 1-51; Walter B.
Weimer, "The History of Psychology and its Retrieval from Historio
graphy: I. The Problematic Nature of History," Science Studies, 4 (1974),
pp. 235-58, and Notes on the Methodology of Scientific Research (Hills
dale, N.Y., 1979), chap. 12; D. Wettersten, "The Historiography of
Scientific Psychology: A Critical Study," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 11
(1975), pp. 157-71; and especially John M. O'Donnell, "The Crisis of
Experimentation in the 1920s: E.G. Boring and His Uses of History,"
American Psychologist, 34 (1979), pp. 289-95.
to the topic in his History, eighteen are concerned in one way or another
with its antecedents, including six pages on "form qualities" from an
earlier chapter. According to Boring, even such theorists as John Stuart
Mill and Wilhelm Wundt '"had already begun to move in the direction" of
Gestalt theory decades before it was presented. The research areas pro
moted by the Gestalt theorists, such as the so-called perceptual con
stancies, had all been developing for decades as well. Even the chief
method of Gestalt theory, phenomenological observation, was already in
use in Gottingen and elsewhere when that theory emerged. Thus "phenomenolo
gy was in the air," and "Wertheimer's insight of 1910 was the sort':of event
which was required by the times.
Boring's account fails to mention that the use of "phenomenological"
methods in Gottingen and elsewhere was connected with theories rather dif
ferent from Wertheimer's, while the phenomena unearthed by such methods
clearly indicated the insufficiency of those theories. Calling this work
part of the Zeitgeist of Gestalt theory thus obscures an essential part of
its innovation. Boring's approach also obscures the ways in which con
temporary research was incorporated into and transformed by Gestalt theory.
Last but not least, for all his talk of theories being "required by the times,
Boring ignores the broader social and intellectual contexts of these develop
ments, because he wants to write "a scientist's history." He therefore can
not explain why phenomenology was "in the air" at this time, or why such
methodological and theoretical chanjges were thought to be so urgently neces
sary in the first place.
6 Edwin G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology (1929), 2nd ed.,

(New York, 1950), esp. pp. 447, 604.
- xviii -
Many of the chapters on Gestalt theory in "systems and theories"
texts contain errors taken over more or less uncritically from Borings
History. One of the most widespread of these might be called the Kant
canard - the idea that Gestalt theory represents a revival or defense of
a "Kantian, more precisely the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas. The
root of this error is the confusion of perceptual empirism - the doctrine
that important characteristics of the perceived world, such as the third
dimension, are acquired and not inherited - with epistemological empiricism,
wit:, which it is closely related but by no means identical. The assump
tion seems to be that a perceptual theory that is not empirist must there
fore be "nativist", hence rationalistic, hence a revival of the doctrine
of innate ideas.^ In fact, as students of Gestalt theory have continually
pointed out, that theory is neither nativist nor empirist. In Gestalt
theory the organization of sense data is not the work of the mind but of
the brain; Kant's a priori categories or forms of understanding are thus

g
not exclusive properties of the mind, but of both mind and nature. We
shall see below that the Gestalt theorists challenged both empirism and
empiricism, rationalism and nativism. To characterize Gestalt theory as
"Kantian" is to confuse it with some of the theories that it opposed.
7 For examples of this, see Robert W. Lundin, Theories and System of

Psychology (Lexington, Mass., 1972), pp. 203 ff.; Duane Schultz, A
History of Modern Psychology, 3rd ed. (New York, 1981), pp. 241 ff.;
Daniel Robinson, An Intellectual History of Psychology (New York, 1976),
p. 312.
8 See, e.g., Mary Henle, "The Influence of Gestalt Psychology in Ameri

ca," in Robert W. Rieber & Kurt Salzinger, eds., Psychology; Theoretical
and Historical Perspectives (New York, 1980), pp. 177-90; Nicolas Pastore
Reevaluation of Boring on Kantian Influence, Nineteenth Century Nativism
Gestalt Psychology and Helmholtz," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 10 (1974),
pp. 375-90.
The major error of these accounts, however, is to adopt a version
of Gestalt theorys history more closely related to the logic of their own
textbooks than to historical reality. All of them state, following
Boring, that the Gestalt theorists reacted against the atomism or ele-
mentism that prevailed in the psychological theory of their day. This
they generally identify with a doctrine called "structuralism", which
they attribute to Wilhelm Wundt and E.B. Titchener, and which they treat
in an earlier chapter of their texts. The general characterization of
the Gestalt theorists reaction is correct as far as it goes, but the
description of its object is too simple. As recent research his shown,
and as we shall also see in part two of this thesis, the identification
of Wundt's and Titchener's psychologies under the heading of "Structuralism"

q
obscured significant differences between the ideas of these two theorists.
More important still is that because these writers ignore the immediate
social and institutional context of Gestalt theory, they neglect a key
figure in its early history, someone who does not fit easily into "systems
and theories" texts because he had no psychological system - Carl Stumpf.
Though most "systems and theories" texts note that all of the Gestalt theo
rists received much of their training in Stumpf's Berlin institute, none
contains an analysis of Stumpf's actual role in the development of Gestalt
theory. As we shall see, that role was central, though by no means simple.
Paradoxically, a clear example of the pitfalls of "systems and
theories" history is also one of the better historical treatments of Gestalt
9 One recent text which takes these differences into account is Thomas
H. Leahey, A History of Psychology; Main Currents of Psychological
Thought (Englewood Cliffs., N.J., 1980).
- XX -
theory thus far. This is the chapter on Gestalt theory in Nicolas Pastore 's
Selective History of Theories of Visual Perception.10 Himself a student
of the Gestalt theorists and a diligent reader of Aron Gurwitschs sophisti
cated philosophical and historical studies of perceptual theory, Pastore
knows whereof he speaks. This dissertation relies upon his account in
several places. However, Pastore bases that account upon Gestalt theory
in its mature state, and deliberately does not discuss any changes it might
have undergone in its long history. This is clearly legitimate procedure"
for a selective history, but such limitations can also lead to mistakes.
Pastore states, for example, that experiments Wolfgang Kohler made with
animals, published in 1915, were designed to test what he calls Kohlers
"field theory against "machine theory", and that Kohler "interpreted the
results of his experiments as proof of field theory and as a demonstration
of its generality."** Actually, the experiments were designed to test
the role of past experience in perception; the theoretical opposition be
tween "field theory" and "machine theory" was in an important sense a pro
duct of this work, not the other way around.
More problematic still is the structure of Pastores chapter as a
whole. He severely limits discussion of other theories within the historical
orbit of Gestalt theory. The work of Ewald Hering, for example, is confined
to a single long footnote, and that of Stumpf and G.E. Muller is barely
mentioned. The virtue of this selectivity is that the fundamental differences
between Gestalt theory and all versions of empirism in perception, especially
10 Nicolas Pastore, Selective History of Theories of Visual Perception,

1650-1950 (New York, 1971), chap. 14.
11 Pastore, Selective History, p. 311.
those of Berkeley and Helmholtz, emerges clearly. However, the immediate
methodological and conceptual roots of the Gestalt position itself are
obscured, and in some cases even denied. The net effect is not only to
exaggerate the uniqueness and originality of Gestalt theory - an under
standable tendency in light of Borings distortions in the other direc
tion - but also to obscure the true character of its innovation. Fortun
ately, Pastore has filled in the picture to some extent in later articles.
Whatever their other strengths and weaknesses may be, all of these
historical and systematic chapters treat the history of Gestalt theory as
though it could be explained simply as a reaction to empirically demonstrable
inadequacies in then-current psychological theories. There is some justi
fication for this; for that is the way the story was told in the systematic
texts of the Gestalt theorists themselves. But the Gestalt theorists also
made it clear that theirs was more than a theory of perception, more even
than a psychological system. Clearly, if we are to develop a broader per
spective upon its history, we must go beyond the historiography that the
discipline of psychology has produced for its own consumption. 12
Ironically, more than a trace of this point of view is also evident
in the only serious attempt thus far to go beyond a "systems and theories"
account. In his 1972 doctoral dissertation, the psychologist Martin Leicht-
man offers a thorough and accurate criticism of what he calls the "orthodox"
12 Theo Herrmann's monograph, "Ganzheitspsychologie und Gestalttheorie,"

contains a brief historical sketch of the intellectual background of
Gestalt theory. In the main, however, it is also a systematic account
which focuses on the theory in its mature state, not upon its develop
ment. The same is true for the studies of Gestalt theory which have
been written by philosophers. For a brief commentary on these works,
see the essay on sources, below, pp. 5 3 4 f.
conception of the history of Gestalt theory, by which he means that of
Boring. He then proposes to replace that account with a "heterodox" model
developed from the work of Thomas Kuhn. Most significant here is the claim,
made as a "prediction" from that model, that the Gestalt theorists resolved
the crisis in the then-dominant paradigm of perceptual theory with the help
of ideas drawn from outside the scientific community of psychologists.
These he describes ether broadly as "the humanistic" or "the enlightenment

13
world view." In a later essay, Leichtman goes on to discuss in pro
vocative fashion the ways in which Gestalt theory may be understood as
part of the "revolt against positivism" that occurred in European thought
after 1890. There he arrives at an analysis similar to that of Fritz Ringer,
cited above, and takes it a step further, referring to the Gestalt theorists
as adherents of "the liberal democratic world view" as opposed to the pre
vailing conservatism of the German academic elite.^
With this work Leichtman has taken a significant step away from a
strictly intemalistic conception of psychology's history, and has recog
nized that history's embeddedness in wider cultural and social trends. How
ever, in his attempt to confirm the "prediction" just mentioned, he en
counters important methodological problems. One of these is that most of
the statements he cites in support of his claim come from the years after
1920, a stage of Gestalt theory's history which was characterized to a great
13 Martin Leichtman, "Conceptionsof the History of Psychological Systems:

An Examination of Alternative Models of Inquiry and Their Application
to the Development of Gestalt Psychology," Ph.D. Dissertation, Clark
University, 1972, University Microfilms Order No. 72-27362.
14 Leichtman, "Gestalt Psychology and the Revolt Against Positivism," in

Allan Buss, ed., Psychology in Social Context (New York, 1979), pp.
47-75.
- xxiii -
extent by ideological polemics, as Leichtman himself rightly states in his
dissertation. He tries to circumvent this difficulty by using the adjective
"early" in some cases to refer to the writings of the Gestalt theorists before
1920 and in others to describe publications from the 1920s as well. At the
end of his article, he states that the pre-1920 work of the Gestalt theo
rists was "empirical", but claims that there is "good reason" to think that the
"the liberal humanistic" or even "the liberal democratic world view" was a
/ motivating factor in the theory's development from the beginning.1^ Unfortun
ately, Leichtman's command of German is not sufficient to permit him to
support this assertation in detail by making a closer study of the early
writings of the Gestalt theorists and their contemporaries.
However, the problems with Leichtman1s approach go deeper than this.
Perhaps we may leave aside the imprecision of speaking of "the humanistic",
"the enlightenment" or even "the liberal democratic world view" as though
there were only one such thing. More important is that Leichtman offers
no support for separating perceptual theory as the product of a Kuhnian
scientific community from philosophical "world views" imported into that com
munity from without. In doing this he was unwittingly taken over Boring's
conception of the history of psychology as a "pure" laboratory science un
contaminated by either philosophy or technology. This conception is artifi
cial in any circumstances, but it clearly does not conform to the facts of
this case. Had Leichtman analysed the development and structure of this
particular scientific community, he would have found that experimental psy
chology in Germany was and remained a subspecialty of philosophy throughout
15 Leichtman, "Gestalt Psychology," pp. 64-65.
- xxiv -
this period and beyond. The use of philosophy to solve psychological pro
blems, and the converse claim that psychological research could solve philo
sophical problems, were not disturbances of "normal science" from without,
but part and parcel of the discipline as it was practiced in Germany at the
time. The Gestalt theorists did reach "outside" even this wider framework
in the construction of their world view, most notably to theoretical phy
sics. In the main, however, they brought about their "scientific revolu
tion" not by importing new perspectives from elsewhere, but by radically
transforming and reconstructing already available concepts and methods.
Recognizing this does not mean that we must return to present-day psycho
logys internalist perspective; rather the opposite. But the fact remains
that the origins and early history of Gestalt theory were more complicated
than Leichtmans model would suggest.
The attempt to overcome such schematic dichotomies is a central char
acteristic of recent work in the social history of science. This field has
been undergoing redefinition for some time, as the notorious problem of the
role of "internal" and "external" factors has ceased to be an issue fought
out by rival philosophical camps and has become a subject of concrete re
search. The challenge has become not to depict scientific ideas as one
dimensional reflections of abstractions like "bourgeois society", but to
trace the mediating structures involved in the production, dissemination
and application of scientific knowledge in specific social settings. As
Roy MacLeod has put it, in current work in the field that which is "external"
and that which is "internal" to science is defined according to the situa
tion of the scientists involved. Such a sophisticated contextualist approach
offers "a way to avoid the necessity of a simple internal/external dichotomy.
- XXV -
There may well be matters of content which are remote from external influence,
but these are matters for discovery and discussion, not for assertion; they
are work for the historian."1^
Such declarations challenge scholars to develop working concepts of
the relationship of science and society suitable to the subjects they have
in mind. Recent calls for a "sociology of psychological knowledge" or for
a "social history of psychology" may be seen as responses to that chal
lenge. ^ A first step toward concrete research in the field is a study
by Siegfried Jaeger and Irmingard Stacuble called "The Social Genesis of
Psychology". Their Marxist analysis proceeds from the thesis that societal
and scientific development form a "mediated unity, in which the character
of scientific production is determined dialectically by both the nature
16 Roy MacLeod, "Changing Perspectives in the Social History of Science,"

in Ina Spiegel-Rosing & Derek de Solla Price, eds., Science, Technology
and Society (London & Beverley Hills, 1977), pp. 149-95, esp. pp. 176-77.
Cf. Everett Mendelsohn, "The Social Construction of Scientific Know
ledge," in Everett Mendelsohn, Peter Weingart & Richard Whitley, eds.,
The Social Production of Scientific Knowlegde (Sociology of the Sciences,
vol. 1) (Dordrect & Boston, 1977), pp. 3-26, esp. p. 9. For thorough
reviews of more recent scholarship in the social history of science,
see Steven Shapin, "A Course in the Social History of Science," Social
Studies of Science, 10 (1980), pp. 231-58, and "History of Science and
its Sociological Reconstructions," History of Science, 20 (1982), in press.
17 Allan R. Buss, "The Emerging Field of the Sociology of Psychological

Knowledge" (1975), repr. in Allan R. Buss, ed., Psychology in Social
Context (cited above, n. 12), pp. 1-24; Hans Thomae, Psychologie in der
modemen Gesellschaft (Hamburg, 1977). East German scholars have also
begun to speak of mediating links" between psychology and larger social
developments. Cf. Georg Eckardt, "Einleitung. Bemerkungen zum Anlie-
gen psychologiehistorischer Forschung," in Georg Eckardt, ed., Zur Ge-
schichte der Psychologie (Berlin (DDR), 1979), pp. 7-20. For an excel
lent discussion of these an* other recent approaches to the history of
psychology, see Ulfried Geuter, "Psychologiegeschichte," in Gi'nther
Rexilius & Siegfried Grubitzsch, eds., Handbuch psychologischer Grund-
begriffe (Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1981), pp. 824-38.
- xxvi -
of the material and by "the characteristics of its social determination."
In German-speaking lands, they point out, the emergence of the psyche as
an object of study preceded the development of the science of psychology by
nearly a century. In their view the concept of the psyche was created to
deal with two specific problems of pre-capitalist society, that of "bourgeois
subjectivity" on the one hand and that of the definition and measurement of
18
labor power on the other. The merit of this work is to show that the
"object" (Gegenstand) of psychological science was itself a historical crea
tion, and that the study of only part of that "object" was institutionalized
in the German universities as a subfield of philosophy.
Unfortunately, Jaeger and Staeuble's analysis ends where this one
begins, with the emergence and organization of experimental psychology as
a scientific community. With this development, however, a form of mediation
between science and society emerged for which Jaeger and Staeuble apparent
ly have not developed analytical tools. Precisely here is where sociologists
of science have been most avidly at work. Since Thomas Kuhn's suggestion
that scientific communities might be more appropriate units of analysis
than individual scientists, research in the field has focused upon the emerg
ence and structure of such communities, and especially of scientific dis-

19
ciplines. Some of this work is based upon Talcott Parsons' concept of
"differentiation". Here the development and institutionalization of scien
tific disciplines is seen as a progress analogous to that of functional dif-
18 Siegfried Jaeger & Irmingard Staeuble, Die gesellschaftliche Genese der

Psychologie (Frankfurt a.M., 1978), esp. pp. 16, 23-24.
19 A useful collection of such studies is G. Lemaine, et al.. Perspectives

in the Study of Scientific Disciplines (The Hague, 1976).
- xxvii -
ferentiation in industrializing society.^ One weakness of such discus
sions is their relative lack of concern for the content of the disciplines
they study, specifically for the relationship, if any, between the concept
ual development of disciplines and their institutionalization.
An attempt to deal with this problem that might also be applicable
to the history of psychology is the distinction made by the sociologist
Richard Whitley between the 'cognitive" and the "social" institutionalization

21
of disciplines. By cognitive institutionalization Whitley means the de
velopment of an intellectual consensus among members of a new discipline
about the nature and limits of the field, the concepts and methods to be
employed, and the extent to which individual researchers identify with the
discipline. In this view a high degree of cognitive institutionalization
does not necessarily require the existence of an accepted paradigm in the
Kuhnian mold. Researchers could agree about the existence of problems, but
not about the techniques for solving them; or they could agree about problems
and techniques, but not about a common "dogma" or complex of theory and
method which would integrate the results. Such a consensus may or may not
be reflected in a formal disciplinary framework, though that is perhaps
the most reliable indicator of its existence. The establishment of such
frameworks is part of the "social" institutionalization of a discipline.
By this Whitley means both its internal organization, in the form of
20 See, e.g., Rudolf Stichweh, Ausdifferenzierung der Wissenschaft: Eine

Analyse am deutschen Beispiel, Forschungsschwerpunkt Wissenschafts-
forschung, Universitat Bielefeld, Report No. 8 "(Bielefeld, 1977).
21 Richard Whitley, "Cognitive and Social Institutionalization of Scien

tific Specialties and Research Areas," in Richard Whitley, ed., Social
Processes of Scientific Development (London, 1974), pp. 69-95.
- 3aan.ir -
scientific societies, journals and similar organs, and the way in which
the scientists so organized are connected with dominant systems for the
distribution of financial and facilitative support.
At first glance, this distinction seems to apply quite well to the
history of experimental psychology in Germany. In Whitley's terms, the
discipline had only reached the first, and in some instances the second
stage of "cognitive" institutionalization by 1910; and there was no common
paradigm to integrate the results. At the level of "social" institutiona
lization, the organization of a scientific society and a network of publi
cations did not lead to the establishment of independent professorships
of psychology in the German universities. Such cognitive and social dis-
sonances could lead to what Whitley elsewhere calls "task uncertainty". 22
Bluntly put, according to this model experimenting psychologists in Germany
at the turn of the century did not yet know, exactly what kind of knowledge
they were supposed to be pursuing, to what purpose or for whom. We would
have every right to expect a welter of theoretical and institutional con
fusion in the field. Gestalt theory would thus be one of the more specta
cular attempts to bring order into this chaos. Closer examination of
the situation shows, however, that this view is not exactly correct. The
theoretical difficulties of experimental psychology in Germany at the
turn of the century were indeed serious, but not because psychologists
could not decide whether to be psychologists or philosophers.
22 For Whitley's explication of this concept, which he borrowed from

Randall Collins, see "The Establishment and Structure of the Sciences
as Reputational Organizations," in Norbert Elias, Herminio Martins &
Richard Whitley, eds., Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies
(Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol. 6) (Dordrecht & Boston, 1982),
pp. 313-57.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
A more accurate perspective is that provided by Kurt Danzigers
1979 essay "The Social Origins of Modem Psychology". Danzigers thesis
is that the institutionalization of psychology was part of a larger
struggle for a "monopoly over the production of psychological knowledge"
similar to the academic professionalization of other disciplines. How
ever, this process took different forms in different settings, closely
related to the different social and political situations of the universi
ty in various countries. In Germany, where the universities were orient
ed primarily to training members of the bureaucracy and the so-called
"free professions", psychologists were unable or unwilling at first to de
monstrate a unique social function that would have brought them state
support in the form of independent professorships. They therefore remain
ed affiliated with philosophy far longer than their American colleagues.
The Americans, participating in an expanding university system with both
a different internal organization and a different relationship to business
and government, committed themselves more rapidly and wholeheartedly to

23
a technocratically oriented concept of science.
The historical results presented in part one of this disserta
tion provide independently derived confirmation of Danzigers thesis,
at least for the case of Germany. During the Wilhelminian period, especial
ly after 1890, the German universities expanded rapidly, partly in order
to meet the rising demand in industry for scientifically trained personnel.
However, new disciplines seeking entry into this growing institutional
23 Kurt Danziger, "The Social Origins of Modem Psychology," in Buss,

ed., Psychology in Social Context, pp. 27-46. For a critical dis
cussion of the concept of academic professionalization, see Henrika
Kuklick, "Boundary Maintenance in American Sociology: Limitations
to Academic Professionalization," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 16
(1980), pp. 201-19.
- xxx -
matrix faced the same double demand they had faced throughout the centu
ry: to earn recognition as Wissenschaft, or pure research, in the eyes
of peers, and to demonstrate their social usefulness to the state offi
cials who decided upon the establishment of new professorships and their
accompanying seminars or laboratories. The university reformers of
the early nineteenth century had already squared this circle in the case
of philosophy by making that discipline an examination requirement for
Gymnasium teachers.
When Gestalt theory emerged in the second decade of this century,
psychology in Germany was still regarded as a subspecialty of philosophy,
as it continued to be for many years thereafter. There were good histo
rical reasons for this seemingly paradoxical situation. German profes
sors of philosophy enjoyed high social status and a certain amount of
practical influence as a result of their role in teacher selection. More
over, experimenting psychologists, many of whom were trained philosophers,
believed that empirical research in psychology could help to solve philo
sophical problems, especially in the theory of knowledge. In the gene
ration after 1890, philosopher-experimenters played a leading role in or
ganizing an interdisciplinary scientific community in the new field.
They looked to physiologists for legitimating support in that effort,
but both their professorial identity and their intellectual aims remained
oriented to philosophy.
Both the shape of Carl Stumpfs career and the way in which he founded
and led the psychological institute at the University of Berlin were indica
tive of the benefits and the limitations of this double identity. The pri
macy of theoretical aims, both philosophical and psychological, over those
of applied psychology, and the use of self-observation, or experimental phe
nomenology, to achieve those ends were among the lessons that Wertheimer,
Kohler and Koffka learned when they received their training under Stumpf
in Berlin. Ensconced in one of the two best-supported psychological in
stitutes in Germany, they had little reason to doubt the feasibility
either of doing experimental research with philosophical goals, or of making
a career in the field.
Advantageous as it seemed, however, experimental psychology's loca
tion within philosophy limited its growth potential in the iong run. The
new generation of experimenting psychologists thought, as their teachers
did, that their work could solve philosophical problems; but the actual
result was a mutual parting of the ways. Laboratory work left them little
time for philosophical discussion. At the same time, leading philosophers,
such as Edmund Husserl and Wilhelm Windelband, called for a return to
"pure" philosophy. Rooted partly in idealistic and logicistic reactions
to epistemological "psychologism" and partly in the resentment of the
humanistically educated against the growing status of the technically and
scientifically trained, such calls found a ready target in the experiment
ing psychologists. The struggle within German philosophy reached its height
in 1912, when 107 university teachers signed a petition against the appoint
ment of experimenting psychologists to chairs of philosophy. These events
posed direct questions about the field's social function. Why, after all,
should future Gymnasium teachers have to hear about experimental psycholo
gy in required philosophy courses, when their role in life was to communi
cate higher values, a metaphysical world view?
Seen in this light, the dilemma of experimenting psychologists was
to find ways of. realizing the research potential of their methods while
justifying and retaining their place in the established order. The con
ceptual and methodological issues connected with that dilemma are the sub
ject of part two. The established order also contained other, less pre
cariously institutionalized disciplines. Thus Wolf Lepenies' point that
the history of a discipline cannot be done adequately without taking ac
count of developments in neighboring or competing disciplines applies to

24
the history of experimental psychology in this period. This thesis
is not the place for an intellectual history of nineteenth century science,
or even of late nineteenth century psychology. The account has therefore
been confined to issues that were relevant to the emergence of Gestalt
theory. Yet even with this limitation the story is complicated enough.
The work of Hermann Helmholtz and his physiologist colleagues
seemed at first to offer a model for experimental psychology's problems
of academic legitimation. However, Helmholtz succeeded in extending his
mechanistic assumptions about sensation to psychology only by invoking pro
cesses such as unconscious inductive reasoning, which depended in the
last analysis upon a Fichtean philosophy of mind. Experimenting psycho
logists employed Helmholtz's methods and observations, but his assumptions
about science seemed to be better suited to defining a conceptual basis
for sensory physiology than for establishing the intellectual and scientific
standing of psychology. The work of Ewald Hering, especially his methodology
of heuristic phenomenalism - the acceptance in evidence of the psycholo-
24 Wolf Lepenies, "Problems of a Historical Study of Science," in Mendel

sohn, et al., eds., The Social Production of Scientific Knowledge (cited
above, n. 16), pp. 55-67.
/
/
- xxxiii -
gically given - offered an alternative to Helmholtzs dualism that was
attractive to many experimenting psychologists. This was especially
true after the turn of the century, as philosophers talk about "phenome
nology seemed to offer epistemological sanction for such procedures.
But the richness of the phenomenal world opened up by these methods could
not be explained easily with the prevailing categories of perceptual theory.
The most enthusiastic response to Helmholtzs implied invitation
to put speculative philosophy on an empirical basis was that of his for
mer assistant, Wilhelm Wundt. He did this, however, at the cost of replac
ing the master's simplifying assumptions about sensation with complicat
ing ones about psychical entities and apperception processes. He justified
this procedure with a conception of theory construction borrowed from
Newtonian physics; but this meant postulating psychical elements and
processes for which there was little or no introspective evidence. It
also meant the exclusion from experimentation of just those higher mental
processes, such as thought, that were of interest to philosophers. Some
of Wundt's best students were among the first to turn for aid in this
situation to the neutral monist epistemology and the neopositivist philo
sophy of science offered by Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius. By doing
this they hoped to establish more firmly the unity of science and mind,
and thus resolve the tension between dualistic restrictions and monistic
hopes characteristic of psychological thinking in its German cultural con
text.
However, this effort brought problems of its own. At the level of
science, Mach's phenomenological physics helped to undermine the mechanistic
foundation upon which psychologists had constructed their systems. Perhaps
the answer to psychology's conceptual location was not to change its con
- xxxiv -
ception of mind, but to participate in the phenomenalistic redefinition of
nature. But Machs debates with Ludwig Boltzmann and later with Max Placnk
showed that neither his ontological phenomenalism nor his "connect the
appearances" approach to theory construction was . universally accepted,
even in physics. At the level of mind, Machs epistemology presupposed
psychical atoms, the sensations, even though he had rejected physical
atomism. Yet his own provocative observations indicated the problems of
using sensationalism as both a descriptive and an explanatory tool. The
fact that elementism was counterfactual was clear to most experimenting
psychologists by 1910. Some took refuge in an "as if" argument, sacrific
ing psychical reality for the sake of what they took to be proper scienti
fic procedure. Others, including Stumpf, preferred to accept psychical
reality as it appeared; Stumpf even went so far as to accept the reality
of relations and the existence, in certain cases, of "immanent structure"
in the appearances. Yet he and others retained an essentially empiricist
epistemology. The result was a fundamental ambivalence about the use of
natural scientific method in psychology. The mechanism-vitalism contro
versy, which entered psychological discussion at the turn of the century,
could only strengthen that ambivalence. For if living matter is govern
ed by causal principles essentially different from those of physical
reality, as the vitalists argued, then this must be true of mind as well.
Many leading philosophers of the period solved the problem by
offering new philosophies of mind. Some of them, including Wilhelm
Dilthey and Henri Bergson, revolted directly against mechanism and po
sitivism; others, such as William James, were themselves positivists in
certain respects. The fascination of natural-scientific rigor reached
- X XXV -
even into the ranks of the severest critics. The important point, however,
is that it was these thinkers, especially Dilthey and Edmund Husserl, whose
observations supported the deepest doubts about psychologys legitimacy as
a philosophical discipline. Not only were the experimentalists apparently
unable to provide an empirically supported philosophical world view; their
theories were impotent in the face of the reality they claimed to explain.
Experimenting psychologists made constructive efforts to deal with this
challenge. Oswald Kulpes Wurzburg school attacked the problem of thought,
and students of Alexius Meinong's Graz school took on the problem of form.
These were not only schools of psychology, but attempts to use psychologic
al research to develop a realistic epistemology that would overcome sensa
tionalism and also satisfy rationalists' demands for an account of logical
validity. Their work was similar in intent to that of Husserl's Logical
Investigations. But just as these attempts were coming to fruition, Husserl
converted to transcendental idealism, while other philosophers called for
a revival of metaphysics. In this intellectual atmosphere, complex com
promises like those of Kulpe and Meinong seemed insufficient.
Thus, despite the increasing theoretical and methodological so
phistication of its practitioners, experimental psychology in Germany was
caught in an academic impasse: both the intellectual and the social bases
of its legitimacy as a philosophical discipline were in doubt. Many ex
perimenting psychologists also sought to apply their methods to social
problems, primarily in education and in industry. But to base the legi
timacy of the field entirely on such work would have threatened its philo
sophical status still more. It was not until 1941 that the field finally
achieved institutional independence, primarily because the Wehrmacht re-
- xxxvi -
25
quired trained psychologists to assist in the selection of officers.
In the interval, however, the typical route to academic acceptance for
experimenting psychologists was to demonstrate that natural scientific
methods, suitably applied and interpreted, could lead to philosophically
interesting results. This was also the route that the Gestalt theorists
took. Their story is the subject of part three.
The Gestalt theorists responded to their discipline's dilemma with
a radical revision of psychological thought and practice. This consisted
of a highly complex set of conceptual and methodological transformations,

26
which were gradually developed between 1912 and 1920. The core of
that response was the fundamentally new epistemology worked out by Wav
Wertheimer before 1910 and first articulated in a 1912 essay on the number
concepts of primitive peoples. In essence that doctrine was a radical
transformation, almost a reversal of Humean phenomenalism. That which
Dilthey had vaguely implied in 1894 with his assertion that we are aware of
"structural contexts" (Strukturzusammenhange), und which Christian von
Ehrenfels had stated more plainly in his doctrine of Gestalt qualities,
Wertheimer systematized and raised to the level of a psychological ontology,
which we might call immanent structuralism. Gestalten, he argued, are not
constructions from other, more fundamental mental units, nor are they
25 For a thorough study of this stage of psychology's history, see Ul-

fried Geuter, "Die Professionalisierung der deutschen Psychologie
im Nationalsozialismus," Phil. Diss. Freie Universitat Berlin, 1982.
26 For applications of the transformation concept in the history of

science, see I. Bernard Cohen, The Newtonian Revolution: With Il
lustrations of the Transformation of Scientific Ideas (New York,
1980). The most successful application of the concept to the histo
ry of psychology thus far is Frank Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the
Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend (New York, 1979).
- xxxvii -
additional qualia attached to them; they are themselves the fundamental
units of mental life- Wertheimer thus broke not only with empiricism and
sensationalism, but also with the intentional model of consciousness con
sidered by Stumpf and others to be the best hope of preserving a link
between the facts of empirical psychology and the rules of logical validity.
However, Wertheimer,s psychological ontology alone was not suffi
cient to produce a fundamental shift in experimental psychology. Required
in addition were, first, an immediately impressive experimental demonstra
tion of the new reality that could lead to further research and, second,
a way of linking the new mode of description with an explanatory theory
that offered at least the hope of accounting for both old and new findings.
Thomas Kuhn emphasizes the idea that such theory - laden models of proce-
27
dure should be socially transferrable by calling them "exemplars".
Wertheimer provided such a model in his famous paper on apparent motion.
He attempted in that paper to construct "crucial demonstrations of "dy
namic phenomena", in this case of the existence of perceived motion with
out a moving object. In essence, he sought to synthesize Stumpf's ex
perimental phenomenology, with its emphasis upon the qualitative classi
fication of appearances, and the natural-scientific demand for decisive
proof of clearly defined hypotheses. In addition, Wertheimer offered a
physiological theory of "structured whole processes" in the brain which,
he thought, could underlie his "dynamic phenomena", and stated that this
theory had the same heuristic function that hypothetical-deductive theo
ries have in physics. Thus his "crucial demonstrations" promised to be
27 For Kuhn's explication of this concept, see his "Second Thoughts on

Paradigms," in The Essential Tension: Selected Studies on Scientific
Tradition and Change (Chicago, 1977), pp. 293-319.
- xxxviii -
decisive tests at both the level of descrition and that of explanation.
Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler were two of the three subjects in
Wertheimer*s experiments; for them these demonstrations were decisive in
deed. As they then proceeded to show, Wertheimers model of theory and
practice entailed both a complete reformulation of the categorical system
of sensory psychology and a basic reform in its rules for theory construc
tion. Koffka began to carry out the latter project with his distinction
between "descriptive" and "functional" concepts, worked out in 1912.
This was an attempt to combine a Machian concept of science with Stumpf *s
critical realism by admitting "simple perceptions" to the descriptive fold
in addition to sensations, and by invoking "functional concepts" as
organizers of observations. Koffka thus offered a way of "going beyond
the given", as the Gestalt theorists would later call it, that could be
applied in the same way in both psychology and physics.
Kohler took a first step toward categorical reform in his 1913
critique of the so-called "constancy hypothesis". He claimed that the
assumption of strict determination of sensations by the stimuli, under
stood as punctiform peripheral excitations, was inadequate to the de
mands made by phenomena of stimulus complexity, above all of "the every
day perception of things." If these demands were to be satisfied without
suppressing "the joy of observing", then the assumption would have to
be discarded. This could be done, he asserted, with no loss to the
scientific character of psychological theory. Koffka made the same point
more bluntly when he asserted that psychological analysis in the tradi
tional sense of analysis into presumed psychical "elements" was not only
inadequate but "impossible." At the same time he and his coworkers in
GieBen began to apply Wertheimers procedural model in experiments on
apparent motion.
- xxxix -
In a 1915 polemic against the leading experimentalist of the Graz
school, Vittorio Benussi, Koffka defended his interpretation of this
research and worked out two further conceptual transformations that had been
implicit in Wertheimers theory. The first of these was the notion of
the "total stimulus", which he identified not with punctiform retinal
excitations hut with real objects in an organisms structured environment.
With the elaboration of this concept, Koffka completed the categorical
reform that Kohler had begun in 1913. To this he added a still further-
reaching claim: "static" Gestalten and the dynamic behavior with which we
grasp them are ontologically the same. Both are subject to the same
structural laws, and both could thus be attributed to "structured whole
processes" in the brain. Such notions seemed similar to leading ideas of
American functionalism; however, the differences were equally clear. In
stead of subordinating being to doing, as John Deweys biologistic pragma
tism seemed to do, the Gestalt theorists tried to develop a language that
could put being and doing on tl . ome plane. With this the basic prin
ciples of the Gestalt theory of perception had been expounded.
Meanwhile, on the island of Tenerife, Kohler made experimental ob
servations on animals that seemed to directly substantiate Koffkas ex
tension of the Gestalt concept to behavior. He found that dogs, anthropoid
apes and other animals, when called upon to solve difficult problems, exhi
bit behavior which must be called "intelligent" - making a detour around
a barrier to reach a hidden object, for example, or using sticks to reach
a piece of fruit lying outside a cage. The way the animals' behavior "look
ed" when they did this showed, in Kohlers opinion, that they had achieved
"insight" into the structure of the problem situation. In this search
for "genuine achievements", Kohler subtly transferred Wertheimers experi
- xl -
mental style, the search for "good phenomena", to a rather different set
ting, in a sense making the animals into his collaborators. In subse
quent studies, Kohler quite literally employed apes, chickens and children
as experimental subjects. Using experimental designs cleverly adapted
from the psychophysical procedures he had learned in Berlin, Kohler
found that animals could first be trained to select a darker sheet of paper
over a lighter one, and could then continue to make such selections with
few errors and without relearning, even when the "lighter" paper in later
trials was objectively darker than the originally "darker" paper. If
the perception of relations is a kind of judgment, Kohler maintained, then
chickens must also be able to form judgments. Since no one wished to
attribute higher faculties of this kind to such creatures, Kohler argued
that the only alternative was to recognize the inadequacy of evolutiona
ry classification schemes based upon sensationalist or empiricist assump
tions. "Structural" reactions, he claimed, are a property of living
matter, not of mind alone.
In his 1915 polemic Kurt Koffka had drawn a logical conclusion
from this idea, the thesis that "there are real Gestalten." But he had
retreated from that thesis almost as soon as he presented it, saying that
he wished to concentrate upon perceptual theory, not epistemology. Kohler
had already given a lecture course entitled "The Physical Bases on Con
sciousness" before his departure for Tenerife. The results of his work
with animals and Koffkas 1915 essay provided support for the radical
step he then took in Die physischen Gestalten , the declaration that in
animate nature also contains numerous Gestalten, physical systems, the
behavior of which cannot be described as simple summations of isolated
- xli -
events. This ultimate transformation, the extension of Wertheimers psy
chological ontology to the external world, supported in turn additional
transformations. The most important of these were the radicalization of
G.E. Muller's "psycholophysical axioms" into the postulate of psychophy
sical isomorphism, and the development of a model of the optic sector as
a single physical system in order to account for such "structured whole
processes" as the intelligent behavior of primates. Kohler's bold step
raised numerous problems of its own. But the main point in the short run
was that it introduced Gestalt theory as a philosophy of nature, as well
as an epistemology and a theory of perception. Die physischen Gestalten
was not a flight into metaphysics that is easily detachable from the psy
chological body of Gestalt theory, as psychologists unacquainted with the
historical background might think. Rather, it provided essential support
for that theory's claim to philosophical standing in the German academic
context.
At the same time as Kohler's work was completed and published, Wert
heimer demonstrated Gestalt theory's philosophical thrust in his own way.
In an essay on productive thinking, he asserted that although Aristotelian
logic may have its uses as a set of rules for the construction and proof
of propositions, it is hardly adequate to account for the thinking that
goes on when genuine advances in knowledge are achieved. Wertheimer pro
vided lively examples of such processes, and offered an explanation for
them which amounted to a direct transfer of his epistemological position to
the psychology of thought. He did not work out this idea in greater de
tail until years later, but the basic point was as clear as it had been in
his 1912 essay. Philosophers, in Wertheimer's view, should not accept the
- xlii -
distinction between tbe psychological genesis and the logical validity
of ideas as a division of labor between disciplines, but should try to
develop a logic that could encompass both.
Gestalt theory underwent many changes in the course of its subse
quent development. Its institutionalization in Berlin and elsewhere and
the attempts to further develop and confirm the new approach that went
along with that establishment raised new problems. The transfer of the
theory and its leading representatives to a different social and intellec
tual environment in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s brought addi
tional challenges. But the basic features of Gestalt theory as they were
developed up to 1920 remained more or less intact. The Gestalt theorists
responded to the institutional and intellectual difficulties of experi
mental psychology in its German academic setting with an ambitious and
original attempt to overcome the dualisms between perception and behavior,
between psychology and philosophy, and even between mind and nature. They
did not uproot experimental psychology from its institutional connections
with philosophy, or from its intellectual embeddedness in philosophical
concerns; nor did they wish to do so. Instead they accepted the task as
signed to that discipline by society and tried to resolve it at the highest
possible level. Theirs was a revolt from within, but it was nonetheless
radical for that. The following attempt to describe the origins and the
content of that revolt will provide further evidence of the shaping role
of the social environment in the history of science.
Part one: T h e S o c i a l and Institutional S e t t i n g 1
!. The Problem
The institutionalization of experimental psychology in nineteenth century
Germany has often been portrayed as part of a continous success story. Standard
histories of the field refer to an all-encompassing Zeitgeist which was somehow
favorable to the rise of laboratory research in general, and thus to the establisb-
2
ment of psychological laboratories as well. Leading sociologists of science
have spoken of the institutionalization of a scientific "role" in Germany in the
early and middle portion of the nineteenth century, at first in chemistry and
physiology; developments in biology, physics and the technical fields are then
described either as imitations of, or as the results of intellectual "different-
iation" or personnel transfer from the leading disciplines. At first glance,
the founding in 1879 of the world's first continuously operating psychological
laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt, a physiologist turned philosopher, seems to fit
1 Portions of part one have been adapted or rewritten from the following
publications by the author: "Experimental Psychology in Germany Before
1914: Aspects of an Academic Identity Problem", Psychological Research
42 (1980), 75-86; "Wilhelm Wundt and Oswald Kulpe on the Institutional
Status of Psychology: An Academic Controversy in Historical Context",
in Wolfgang G. Bringmann and Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies (Toron
to, 1980), 396-421; "Academic Politics in the History of Science: Experi
mental Psychology in Germany, 1879-1941", Central European History, 13
(1981), pp.. 255-86.
2 See especially Edwin G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology,

2nd ed., (New York, Appleton Century Crofts, 1950), passim, and in History,
Psychology and Science: Selected Papers, ed. Robert I. Watson and Donald
T. Campbell, (New York, 1963), part one. For a critique of Boring see
Dorothy Ross, "The 'Zeitgeist' and American Psychology", Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences, 5 (1969), 256-62.
3 See, for example, Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist's Role in Society: A

Comparative Study (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), chap. 7, and Frank R.
Pfetsch, Zur Entwicklung der Wissenschaftspolitik in Deutschland 1750-
1914 (Berlin, 1974).
- 2 -
this model very well. Joseph Ben-David and Randall Collins assert in an often-
cited study that this instance of "role-hybridization", as they call it,
marked experimental psychology's "take-off into sustained growth" as a
scientific discipline.^
Whatever we may think of such prickly sociologisms as "role hybridi
zation" or such eloquent historicisms as Zeitgeist, the term "take-off into
sustained growth" as a designation for the institutional history of experi
mental psychology in Germany is far too simple. By Wundt's own count there
were "only four or five very modestly equipped psychological laboratories"
in Prussia, the largest German state, by 1913, and some of these were "hard
ly more than collections of instruments for demonstration purposes. The
director of one of these laboratories, Georg Elias Miller, complained in
his presidential address to the German "Society for Experimental Psychology"
in 1914 that from his budget of 1,200 marks "approximately 140" marks are
left over each year for the acquisition of apparatus" after the deduction
of fixed costs, an average on five to six marks per semester for each re
search project then in progress. "Even a fully uninformed layman recognizes",
Muller concluded, "that with such a complete dependence upon uncertain or
unexpected supplementary funds (from the state or from private sources) the
normal, regulated development and activity of a scientific institute is im
possible."^
4 Joseph Ben-David and Randall Collins, "Social Factors in the Origins

of a New Science: The Case of Psychology", American Sociological Re
view, 31 (1966), p. 451.
5 Wilhelm Wundt, "Die Psychologie im Kampf inns Dasein", (1913), in Kleine

Schriften, vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 1921), p. 542.
6 Georg Elias Miller, "Eroffnungsansprache", in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,

Bericht iiber den 6. Kongress der Gesellschaft fur experimentelle Psycho
logy. .. 1914 (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 106-7.
- 3 -
Thirty-five years after the founding of Wundts institute only four
psychological laboratories in Germany - Leipzig, Berlin, Munich and Wurz
burg - could boast an annual budget higher than that of Mullers establish
ment in Gottingen.^ The combined budgets of these five institutes for the
academic year 1913-1914, 13,100 marks, amounted to slightly less than one-
fifth of the figure for the physiological institute at the University of

8
Berlin alone in the same year - 63,116 marks. Apparently the hybrid sta
tus of experimental psychology had not brought it the level of sustained
support enjoyed by other fields employing experimental methods.
When the scientists who later became the leading representatives of
Gestalt theory decided to devote their lives to experimental psychology
in the first decade of this century, they thus aligned themselves not
with an already established, institutionally independent discipline, but
with a tenuously supported subspecialty of philosophy. To understand what
this meant concretely for their identity as scientists, above all for
their approach to scientific psychology, it is important to describe the
historical situation of experimental psychology in Wilhelminian Germany in
greater detail.
2. The Academic Environment
Taken together, the twenty-one universities on the territory of the
German Empire might well be called the social system of German science,
for the universities retained a nearly complete monopoly of the means of
7 See table two.
8 The budget of the physiological institute in Berlin is reported in

Minerva, Jahrbuch der gelehrtea Welt, 23 (1913-14), p. 115.
- 4 -
research in the nineteenth century. Their primary function, however, was
the training of Germanys educated elite. Both the classification of disciplines
and the degree of state support awarded them depended not upon their objective
characteristics, but upon their promise to fulfill some aspect of this func
tion. The various historical disciplines, for example, were not grouped to
gether, but scattered among the legal, theological, and philosophical (arts
and sciences) faculties.^ Psychology was traditionally regarded as a part
of philosophy, and that discipline had taken its place in the general scheme
of things in 1810, when the Prussian government required candidates for state
teachers' examinations to attend lectures and seminars in the field.^
This step was part of the university reform program developed by Wil
helm von Humboldt and others and symbolized by the founding of the University
of Berlin in 1809. Proclaiming the ideal of the unity of teaching and re
search, the reformers prescribed the study of philosophy for future Gymnasium
9 Lothar Burchardt, Wissenschaftspolitik im wilhelminischen Deutschland:

Vorgeschichte, Grundung und Aufbau der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur
Forderung der Wissenschaften (Gottingen, 1975), p. 11. For a discussion
of research outside the universities, see Peter Lundgreen, "Forschungs-
forderung durch technisch-wissenschaftliche Vereine, 1860-1914", in Rein-
hard Riirup, ed., Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: Beitrage zur Geschichte
der Technischen Universitat Berlin 1879-1979 (Berlin, 1979), I, 265-82.
German-speaking universities .existed, of course, outside the boundaries
of the German Empire, and many of the general statements in this section
apply to them as well. However, in order to avoid raising complex
issues of comparative history which would needlessly lengthen the dis
cussion, only universities and psychological institutes within the Reich
will be treated here.
10 Christian von Ferber, Die Entwicklung des Lehrkorpers der deutschen Uni-
versitaten und Hochschulen 1864-1954 (Gottingen, 1956), p. 36.
11 Fritz K. Ringer, Education and Society in Modern Europe (Bloomington,

Ind., 1979), p. 35.
- 5 -
teachers to give these purveyors of Bildung an idea of the essence of
Wissenschaft; for the methods of philosophy and of classical philology,
not those of the natural sciences, were the original models for the German
concept of Wissenschaft, and thus for the professionalization of academic

12
teaching and research in Germany. By the Wilhelminian period, however,
Bildung had become Besitz. Graduates of a classical Gymnasium with a uni
versity doctorate "were numbered with the established and dominant levels
43
of society and numbered themselves as such. Logically enough, professors,
who held the key to the title gebildet through their control of access to
the state examination systems, also enjoyed high social esteem. Those who
lectured in the high-status fields, particularly medicine, law and philoso
phy, could achieve substantial incomes as well by supplementing their sa-

14
laries with student lecture and examination fees.
Since full professors were state civil servants who could not easily
12 On Humboldt and the reform of university education see Helmut Schelsky,

Einsamkeit und Freiheit. Idee und Gestalt der deutschen Universitat
und ihrer Reformen, 2nd ed. (Dusseldorf, 1971), and Clemens Menze,
Die Bildungsreform Wilhelm von Humboldts (Hannover, 1975). On the Ger
man concept of Wissenschaft and its social function see Fritz K. Ringer,
The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community,
1890-1933 (Cambridge, Hass., 1969), pp. 102 ff., esp. 110-11, and especial
ly R. Steven Turner, "The Growth of Professorial Research in Prussia,
1818 to 1848 - Causes and Context", Historical Studies in the Physical
Sciences,3 (1971), pp. 137-82.
13 Rudolf Vierhaus, "Bildung", in Otto Bruner, Werner Conze and Reinhardt

Kosselleck, eds., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon
zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1972), I,
p. 549. For a contemporary description of this self-styled "aristocracy
of education", see Friedrich Paulsen, The German Universities and Uni
versity Study (New York, 1906), esp. pp. 149-50.
14 Ringer, Mandarins, pp. 37-8.
- 6 -
be dismissed once hired, care was taken at the time of their appointment
to ensure that their political and religious views were either congenial
to the heads of the German state in question - in Prussia, to the imperial
monarchy - or, at least publicly, nonexistent.*^ Because of their strategic
role in teacher training, philosophers were especially likely to be subjected
to such scrutiny. The Berlin philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf in
dicated that he was fully aware of this when he attempted to intercede with
Prussian minister Friedrich Althoff on behalf of his friend and colleague
Edmund Husserl in 1895: "Despite his earlier Judaism and his current Austrian
citizenship, I believe him to be reliable", he wrote.^ In the vast majo
rity of cases, however, official caution was unnecessary. Professors tended
to be sincere patriots who claimed to view practical politics with contempt;
yet they looked to the state as the guarantor not only of their social and
economic status, but also of the "freedom of science" - their right, that
is, to pursue their own research as they wished.*^
15 For general discussions of this issue see Fritz K. Ringer, "Higher

Education in Germany in the Nineteenth Century", Journal of Contemporary
History, 2 (1967), 123-38, and Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (New
York, 1980), pp. 198-205. For a vivid treatment of the political
cross-examinations to which professors were subjected by the Prussian
official in charge of university affairs in this period, Friedrich Alt
hoff, see Charles E. McClelland, State, Society and University in Ger
many 1700-1914 (Cambridge, England, 1980).
16 Stumpf to Althoff, 28 June 1895, in Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Dienststel-

le Merseburg '(DDR). Althoff correspondence, Rep. 92, Althoff B
Nr. 182 Bd. 4 Bl. 47-48.
17 Russell McCormmach, "Academic Scientists in Wilhelminian Germany",

Daedalus, 103 (1974), 157-72; Theodor Schieder, "Kultur, Wissenschaft
und Wissenschaftspolitik im deutschen Kaiserreich", in Gunther Mann
und Rolf Winau, eds., Medizin, Naturwissenschaft, TechniTc und das
zweite Kaiserreich (Gottingen, 1977), 9-34.
- 7 -
Despite continuing proclamations of the autonomy and prestige of
scientific research, however, the institutionalization of a new discipline
was not a simple process in Wilhelminian Germany. University faculties
enjoyed a certain degree of independence from state intervention, but
budgetary decisions and professorial appointments remained in the hands
of the educational and financial officials of the various German states.
These bureaucrats generally relied upon the recommendations of expert
commissions chosen by the faculties themselves when they made appointments,
to existing professorships. This was less often the case, however, when it
came to the recognition of a new discipline, which meant the establishment
of new professorships. Here, financial and other extra-scientific con
siderations often played an inhibiting role. Full professorships required
additional outlays not only for salaries, but also for the seminars or
research institutes which many professors expected to see established along
side their chairs to support their own research and to train students and
18
younger scholars in the field.
For their part, university faculties, aware of the financial situa
tion and themselves divided between the sincere desire to expand scienti
fic research and the wish to preserve their exclusive status and privileges,
continually tried to accommodate new fields by granting their representatives
temporary teaching contracts (Lehrauftrage) or non-budgetary associate pro
fessorships, which expired with the departure of the appointee. The Wil
helminian period saw an enormous expansion of the universities and of funding
for science in general, especially during the years of rapid economic growth
after 1890. Annual expenditure for science in Prussia alone nearly quintupled
18 Fritz K. Ringer, "Higher Education in Germany", p. 125. See also Mandarins.

p. 53.
- 8 -
from 10.4 to 50.1 million marks between 1871 and 1914, with more than two-
19
thirds of the increase coming after 1890. A variety of disciplines, from
meteorology and physical chemistry to the romance languages, either establish-

20
ed or extended their institutional bases in this period. But the fact re
mains that consistent financial support in the form of full professorships
and their accompanying seminars or institutes generally came only after a
long and difficult struggle. In this situation, younger scholars could face
the choice between pursuing specialized research and accepting reduced chances
of advancement, or publishing broader survey works and thus increasing their
opportunities for promotion.^1
One way to circumvent such problems was to make use of the traditional
privilege known as Lehrfreiheit, the freedom to lecture in any field one
wished within certain broadly defined limits. By the middle of the nine
teenth century, Lehrfreiheit had come to mean that university teachers
could "represent" (Americans would say "cover") as they wished only the
22
discipline or disciplines named in their contracts. Even in this restrict
ed form, however, the privilege played an important preparatory role
in the emergence of experimental psychology in Germany. No special
appointment was needed for empirically oriented philosophers like Rudolf
Hermann Lotze to teach two generations of students at Gottingen (from
19 Pfetsch, Zur Entwicklung der Wissenschaftspolitik, p. 52.
20 Peter Lundgreen, "Differentiation in German Higher Education, 1860-

1930", in Konrad Jarausch, ed., The Transformation of Higher Learning
in Europe, 1860- 1930 (Stuttgart, in press).
21 Por a general description of the institutionalization process see Rein-

hard Riese, Die Hochschule auf dem Weg zum wissenschaftlichen Grofibe-
trieb. Die Universitat Heidelberg und das badische Hochschulwesen 1860-
1914 (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 62 ff. The dilemma of younger scholars is
described on pp. 158-59.
22 Klaus-Dieter Bock, Strukturgeschichte der Assistententur: Personengefuge

Wert- und Zielvorstellungen in der deutschen Universitat des 19. und 20.
Jahrhunderts (Dusseldorf, 1972), p. 212.
- 9 -
1844 to 1881) to recognize the importance of empirical research in psy
chology for the resolution of philosophical problems, and to do such re-

23
search themselves. However, for Lotze's theoretical project - an
"empirical metaphysics" combining theories of mind drawn from Naturphilo-
sophie and Kantian idealism with the results of physiological and biolo
gical research - the careful observation of one's own mental processes
was in principle quite sufficient. He and his students worked either alone
or with a small number of collaborators, and employed relatively simple

24
procedures and apparatus.
To reach the level of prestige and security necessary to carry out
and transmit even such comparatively modest innovations for a sustained
period, one had first to become a full professor. For younger scientists
interested in teaching and research, however, there was no guarantee of
earning a regular income during the period between the completion of the
dissertation and that of the Habilitationsschrift, a second, more extensive
piece of research required to obtain the right to teach. Even after clear
ing this hurdle, the only recognized source of support until the arrival
of a call to a full or an associate professorship was the income from stu
dent lecture fees, an uncertain affair at best, since full professors tended
to monopolize the best-attended lectures. The four-fold increase in stu-
23 On the role of Lehrfreiheit see Velma Dobson and Darryl Bruce, "The
German University and the Development of Experimental Psychology",
Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 8 (1972), 204-7; on Lotze's teaching activity
see Wallace A. Russell, "A Note on Lotze's Teaching of Psychology,
1842-1881", Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 2 (1966), 74-5.
24 For Lotze's philosophy see William R. Woodward,'*Ehe Medical Realism

of Rudolf Hermann Lotze," Ph. D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1975,
Xerox University Microfilms order no. 76-14576. See also Boring, History,
pp. 26169.
- 10 -
dent enrollments during the Wilhelminian period may have eased this problem
somewhat, as laboratories and seminars filled with paying students; but
this in turn meant that younger scholars and scientists had less time for
their own research. In addition, since the number of full professorships
did not increase as rapidly as enrolment, the waiting time between the
doctorate and a chair gradually lengthened from an average of twelve years
in the 1860s to sixteen years by 1909. Less than half of those who began
25
academic careers advanced so far at all. In the academic community, then,
as contemporaries realized, men from economically secure or socially well-

26
prepared backgrounds had the best chances of success.
Two features of the situation, one traditional and one more modem,
could mitigate these harsh facts. Younger scholars often presented them
selves as the "students*' of their professorial "masters", who responded in
the same spirit by pressing for the advancement of the more promising among
them. A well-known example of the role of such personal allegiances in
the history of psychology was the appointment of the experimentalist Georg
Elias Miller to a chair of philosophy at Gottingen in 1881 on the express
recommendation of his teacher, friend and predecessor Lotze, even though
Miller was relatively young at the time (31), lacked teaching experience,
27
and had not been the faculty's first choice for the position. Such
25 von Ferber, Entwicklung, Table 19, p. 129.
26 Cf. von Ferber, Entwicklung, pp. 177-78. For the shape of academic
careers and the problems of younger scholars in general, see Alexander
Busch, Die Geschichte des Privatdozenten. Eine soziologische Studie
zur grossbetrieblichen Entwicklung der deutschen Universitaten (Stutt
gart, 1959).
27 Universitatsarchiv der Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen. Universi-

tatskuratorium. XVI.IV A.a. Ordentliche Professoren. 15a. Dr. Miller
(4Vb Nr. 297). See also David Katz, "Georg Elias Miller", Acta Psy
chologies, 1 (1936), p. 234.
- 11 -
procedures, extended to the appointment of "brother" scholars, also led
to the formation of schools of thought grouped around single or neigh
boring universities, such as the Marburg and southwest German schools of
Neo-Kantian philosophy.
The more modem feature was the gradual introduction of the position
of "assistant" for younger scholars. In the seminars attached to professor
ships in the humanistic disciplines, assistants helped conduct the exercises
linked to the general lecture courses and took charge of the seminars
library; in the natural sciences they helped carry out demonstrations during
the lectures, conducted exercises, and trained beginners in the use of

28
laboratory equipment. By the turn of the century, the assistantship had
become an accepted stage in the career development c young academics,
especially in medicine and the natural sciences.
Some authorities tend to underplay the financial aspect of this insti
tution before the First World War, suggesting that private income or support
29
from parents were more important factors. Some of the new experimenting
psychologists, however, seem to have needed the money. Friedrich Schumann,
for example, was assistant first to G.E. Muller in Gottingen, then to Carl
Stumpf in Berlin for nearly twenty years, and required a supplementary sti-
30
pend in addition to his salary for much of that time. By 1900 a "traffic"
28 Bock, Assistentur. Unfortunately, Bock does not discuss the function

of the assistantship in hybrid fields like experimental psychology.
29 von Ferber, Entwicklung, p. 86.
30 For Schumanns career see Boring, History, p. 370. Stumpfs applica

tions to the Prussian ministry of culture and higher education for
Schumann's supplementary stipends are in the Zentrales Staatsarchiv,
Dienststelle Merseburg (G.D.R.), Kultusministerium, Rep. 76 Va Sekt.
2 Tit. X Nr. 150 Bnd. 1, esp. Bl., 26-7.
- 12 -
of assistants in experimental psychology had begun to flow along specific
routes, particularly from Muller's laboratory to Stumpf's; this was

31
apparently viewed as normal by the people involved. The phenomenon in
dicates, however, that the assistantship was a "more modern" institution
in only a relative sense. Despite sociologists' attempts to describe it
as part of a developing pattern of "functional differentiation" and "ra-

32
tionalization" in the German universities, these positions were seen at
the time as extensions of paternalistic patronage and were filled according
ly-
An important part of this developing framework of social attitudes
and institutional structures was the establishment of experimental methods
of research in physiology and biology before the Wilhelminian period by
scientists such as Johannes Muller, Rudolf Virchow, Hermann Helmholtz and
Theodor Schwann. Through their reductionistic refusal to accept other than
physical explanations for biological phenomena - advocated by Miller for
heuristic reasons only, but proclaimed by the others as a strict methodolo
gical principle - the physiologists in particular had set themselves ra
dically apart from the representatives of the more philologically oriented

33
disciplines. At the same time, however, they shared their opponents
distaste for applied science, arguing that their methods had as much right
31 See David Katz's autobiography in E.G. Boring, et al., eds. A History of

Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 4 (New York, 1952), reprint ed. (New
York, 1968), p. 196.
32 Bock, Assistentur, introduction.
33 Dietrich von Engelhardt, "Die Konzeption der Forschung in der Miedizin

des 19. Jahrhunderts", in Alwin Diemer, ed., Konzeption und Begriff
der Forschung in den Wissenschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts (Meisenheim
am Gian, 1978), esp. pp. 61-64, 95.
- 13 -
to be called Wissenschaft as did those of philosophy itself. Some of
them, especially Virchow, also tried to show that the results of experi
mental research in medicine could be beneficial to society by putting
public health and sanitation measures on a more objective, scientific

. . 34
basis.
At least as important as such ideological and political militance
in the long run, however, was that the institutionalization battle was
won after 1848 and from within the system, by campaigning in state mi
nistries of education for new professorial chairs - in the case of physio
logy, .primarily in the medical faculty - and then "peopling" them with
35
students trained in the founders* own laboratories. Success came with
surprising speed; within a single generation after 1850, every German uni-
36
versity had been granted at least one chair of physiology.
That this was not a case of intellectual differentiation alone, but
the result of a complex interaction of social and intellectual factors, is
34 'For the social functions of this complex intellectual position, see

Everett Mendelsohn, "Revolution and Reduction: The Sociology of
Methodological and Philosophical Concerns in Nineteenth-Century
Biology", in Yehuda Elkana, ed., The Interaction Between Science and
Philosophy (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1974), 407-26. On Virchow and
"social medicine" see Gemot Bohme, Altemativen der Wissenschaft
(Frankfurt am Main, 1980), pp. 171 ff.
35 For the evidence behind this description and the use of the word
"peopling" (bevolkem), see Ewald Haradt, "Die Stellung der medizini-
schen Fakultat an der preussischen Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu
Berlin als Beispiel fur den Wandel des Geisteslebens im 19. Jahrhun-
dert", Jahrbuch fur die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands, 20
(1971), 134-60.
36 Avraham Zloczower, Career Opportunities and the Growth of Scientific

Discovery in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Jerusalem, 1966).
- 14 -
suggested by the successful institutionalization of experimental research
in chemistry, which occurred at about the same time. After Justus Liebig
demonstrated the dynamic growth potential of the experimental method,
with its reorganization of large theoretical issues into solvable re
search problems, entrepreneurs - many of them trained chemists - success
fully applied both the organizational forms involved and their results
to soil assaying, dye manufacture and pharmaceutical production. It was
at this point that state officials became interested. The resulting co
operation among science, industry and the state led to the creation of
numerous professorships in chemistry to help meet the rapidly growing demand

37
for trained scientists. By the turn of the century, the doctorate in
this field had become an important route to upward social mobility for
38
children of the so-called "new middle classes" (neuer Mittelstand).
In the case of physiology there was apparently no detour by way of private
enterprise, since both the theoretical and the clinical utility of the
new methods could be demonstrated at the university hospitals where expe-

39
rimenting physiologists worked.
As this combination of factors occurred in a variety of other dis
ciplines, most notably physics, in the Wilhelminian period, a constituency
arose in the universities for the establishment of experimental methods
37 On Liebig's innovation see W.V. Farrar, "Science and the German Uni
versities, 1790-1850", in Maurice Crosland, ed., The Emergence of Science
in Western Europe (London, 1975), 179-92, esp. pp. 185-86. The most com
prehensive study of these developments to date is Peter Borscheid, Natur-
wissenschaft, Staat und Industrie in Baden 1848-1914 (Stuttgart, 1976).
38 Lewis Pyenson and Douglas Skopp, "On the Doctor of Philosophy Dynamic
in Wilhelminian Germany", Informationen zur erziehungs und bildungs-
historischen Forschung, 4 (1976), 63-82.
39 Indications that this interpretation is correct may be found in Riese,

Die Hochschule, esp. 226 ff., 239 ff.
- 15 -
wherever they might prove useful, even in philosophy. Since the natural
sciences were not separated from the humanities in most German philoso
phical faculties, this constituency was in a position to influence pro
fessorial appointments, given the opportunity. The word "useful", however,
could have a variety of meanings. On the one hand, the proclaimed primacy
of theoretical over "applied" knowledge was shared by natural scientists
and humanists alike. If experimental methods were to gain even a foothold
in a discipline like philosophy, their applicability to theoretical - i.e.,
philosophically relevant - problems would have to be demonstrated. On
the other hand, the social function of the universities remained what it had
been, the training of Germany's educated elites. Large-scale state support
in the form of new chairs would be forthcoming only if it could be shown
that the new methods were useful in this sense. The German university re
formers, however, had already squared this circle quite brilliantly in
the case of philosophy by making theory a practical requirement for Gymnasium
teachers. How could experimental psychology hope to find a legitimate place
in such a situation?
3. The Institutionalization of Experimental Psychology: Wilhelm Wundt
By the 1870s, the limits of physiologys first wave of expansion had
been reached, and the subspecialization which would later stimulate further
growth had not yet acquired momentum. Perhaps this situation, which
substantially reduced his career prospects, was one reason why Wilhelm Wundt
shifted from physiology to philosophy and then established experimental -
or, as he continued to call it, "physiological" - psychology as a special-
- 16 -
40
ty within that discipline. Still, it should be added that Wundt was
not only taking a positive way out of a difficult career situation,
hut was also pursuing his own remarkably broad intellectual interests.
He had already offered a lecture course in philosophical anthropology
in the 1860s, and could thus present credentials as a teacher in two
fields of philosophy, even though he did not possess a degree in the

r- u
field. 41
In any case, his appointment to succeed Friedrich A. Lange as pro
fessor of "inductive philosophy" at Zurich in 1874, and especially his
call in the following year to a chair at Leipzig, then the largest univer
sity in Germany, had important implications for the status of experimental
psychology. By this time, experimental methods were well on the way to
establishment in medicine and in the natural sciences, where both their
usefulness in research and the practical value of their results were be
ing demonstrated. Wundt was proposing to bring such new, potentially cost
ly ways of doing science - and, implicitly, the militantly expansionist
tactics of his physiologist teachers - into the very homeland of the hu
manistic ideal of "pure" science, philosophy itself.
Wundt was apparently quite aware of the delicate social and intel-
40 Ben-David and Collins, "Social Factors". Although the authors often

formulate their argument in the plural, it is most doubtful that
their interpretation is valid for anyone besides Wundt.
41 For a telling critique of Ben-David and Collins* approach and an

account of other factors in Wundt's decision to change fields,
see Kurt Danziger, "The Social Origins of Modern Psychology", in
Alan R. Buss., ed., Psychology in Social Context (New York, 1979),
esp. pp. 30-31. See also Alexandre Metraux, "Wilhelm Wundt und die
Institutionalisierung der Psychologie", Psychologische Rundschau,
31 (1980), 84-98.
- 17 -
lectual situation he was getting into. He was a veteran of many years as
Helmholtz1s assistant at Heidelberg, where, as he remembered it, men of
the stature of Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen were regarded by the
historians and philosophers as "mere apothecaries" meddling in humanists*
affairs. The situation was better at Leipzig, Wundt recorded. Natural
scientists like Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Theodor Fechner, the founders
of experimental psychophysics, had long been looked upon there as equals,
and philosophy itself was represented by Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch - a pupil
of Johann Friedrich Herbart - who had himself come to philosophy from ma
thematics. Moreover, the faculty member who most strongly supported his
42
appointment was an astronomer, Carl Friedrich Zollner. This would not
be the last time that support for experimental psychology in the philoso
phical faculty would come from natural scientists.
Nonetheless, Wundt was careful to secure his position at Leipzig by
the traditional method of achieving high -enrolments in his lectures before
proceeding to establish his psychological institute in 1879, as a private
laboratory supported by his own funds, and then the journal Philosophische
43
Studien in 1881. Since one of the journal's purposes was to publish
the results of research at the institute, historians of psychology have
pointed to it with pride as the world's "first effective organ for experi
42 Wilhelm Wundt, Erlebtes und Erkanntes (Stuttgart, 1920), pp. 293-5.
43 Wolfgang G. Bringmann, William D.G. Balance and Rand B. Evans, "Wil

helm Wundt 1832-1920: A Brief Biographical Sketch", Jour. Hist. Behav.
Sci., 11 (1975), p. 294. See also Wolfgang G. Bringmann, Norma J.
Bringmann and Gustav A. Ungerer, "The Establishment of Wundt's Labora
tory: An Archival and Documentary Study", in Wolfgang G. Bringmann
and Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies (Toronto, 1980), 123-57.
- 18 -
44
mental psychology". This it was, but it also contained numerous essays
in the theory of knowledge, philosophy of science and other philosophical
fields, mostly by 'Wundt himself. He later remarked that the title was meant
to be "a call to battle", but the aim of this struggle was to show only
"that this new psychology had the claim to be a subdiscipline (Teilgebiet)
of philosophy.
This goal was consistent with Wundt's conception of psychological
research, in which the role of experimental methods was limited to the clas
sification and measurement of phenomena which could be treated "physiolo
gically" or psychophysically, such as sensation, reaction time, and atten
tion span. Such a view was not a product of Wundt's "philosophical" years,
but part of a comprehensive, hierarchically ordered program already outlined
in 1862, in which higher psychological processes, particularly thought,
were placed by definition beyond the reach of experimental methods.^ Even
so, such limits did not prevent Wundt from organizing what amounted to a
knowledge factory to produce the results which those methods could deliver.
Here is Wundt's description of his institute's operation:
44 Boring, History, p. 325.
45 Wundt, Erlebtes, p. 313.
46 Wundt, "Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception. Introduction.

On the Methods in Psychology" (1862), trans. in Thorne Shipley, ed.,
Classics in Psychology (New York, 1961), 51-78; cf. Carl P. Graumann,
'Experiment, Statistics, History: Wundt's First Programm of Psycho
logy"* in Bringmann and Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, 33-41. Much of
the large and growing East German literature on Wundt is concerned
with his views on experimental research. See, for example, Manfred
Vorwerg, "Wilhelm Wundt und die Stellung der Psychologie im System der
Wissenschaften", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 185 (1975), 337-50, and
Lothar Sprung, "Wilhelm Wundt: Bemerkenswertes und Bedenkliches aus
seinem Lebenswerk", in Georg Eckardt, ed., Zur Geschichte der Psycho-
logie (Berlin, G.D.R., 1979), 73-84.
- 19 -
The activity of the laboratory is divided into two departments:

an introductory course, led each semester by one of the assis
tants in turn... and the more specialized work of the (institutes)
members... The plan for the more specialized work is determined
in an assembly called for that purpose each semester on the open
ing day of the institute. The director first makes known the
topics to be researched, both those carried over from previous
semesters and those newly chosen. With respect to the latter,
any special wishes of the individual older members who are inter
ested in a particular topic are taken into account when possible.
The members are then divided into separate research groups, each
of which concerns itself with a specific topic... After the consti
tution of the groups a leader is designated for each, regularly
an older member who has proven himself by assisting in other pro
jects in previous semesters. The group leader assembles the re
sults of the experiments, and, if they are suitable, prepares them
for publication. The experimental protocols, by the way, are
viewed as the property of the institute, whether the investigation
is published or not.4'
Certainly this way of proceeding has some of the features commonly
attributed to large-scale scientific research today, particularly hierarchic
al organization and the institutional ownership of results. However, closer
examination of the experimentation actually done in Wundt's laboratory
has revealed at least one important difference. The general aim of Wundt's
psychology was to discover not the principles of behavior but those of
"psychical causality", which he postulated alongside physical causality. The
proper subjects for the experimental portion of such a project could only
be normal adult human beings, preferably with practice in psychophysical
47 Wundt, "Das Xnstitut fur experimentelle Psychologie", in Pestschrift

zur Feier des 500jahrigen Bestehens der Universitat Leipzig (Leipzig,
1909), vol. 4, 118-33, esp. pp. 131-2. Cf. Wundt, "Psychophysik und
experimentelle Psychologie", in Wilhelm Lexis, ed., Die Deutschen Uni-
versitaten. Fur die TJniversitatsausstellung in Chicago, 1893 (Berlin,
1893), esp. pp. 454-55. For accounts by others of study at Leipzig,
see Willy Hellpach, Wirken in Wirren. Lebenserinnerungen (Hamburg,
1948), vol. 1, pp. 165 ff., 255 ff., and Michael M. Sokal, "Graduate
Study with Wundt: Two Eyewitness Accounts", in Bringmann & Tweney,
eds., Wundt Studies, 210-25.
- 20 -
observation. This he limited to very simple judgments; in experiments with
tones, for example, a single word such as "higher" or "lower" would suffice.
Both the stimulus conditions and the time required to make the judgments
could he measured with instruments like the kymograph or chronoscope. The
protocols of the experiments made in Wundts institute consist almost en
tirely of such measurements, not of verbal introspective reports. Not the
number of subjects, but the number of observations was important. The mem
bership of the institute was seldom more than twenty-five, and the investi
gators, including Wundt, often served as subjects in one anothers experi
ments. One purpose of the careful organization of the work in Leipzig was
thus to insure that the participants in this collaborative enterprise were
properly trained to carry it out.^
Experimental methods so conceived could be used with self-styled me
diums or psychics, Wundt thought, but only to discredit them. The use of
the term "experimental psychology" remained ambiguous throughout the late
nineteenth century; the first German "Society for Experimental Psychology"
was, in fact, dedicated to psychical research. 49 Wundt s vehement campaign
against spiritism in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and his later oppo
sition to experimentation with hypnotized subjects, could thus be seen as
efforts to establish the exclusive right of his own procedures to this
48 Kurt Danziger, "Wundts Psychological Experiment in the Light of his

Philosophy of Science", Psychological Research, 42 (1980), 109-22, esp.
pp. 113 ff. Fox an example of Wundt's method see the translation by
Peter J. Behrens of the first dissertation done in Wundts laboratory,
by Max Friedrich on the "apperception times" for complex visual images,
in Psychological Research, 42 (1980), 19-38.
49 Adolf Kurzweg, Die Geschichte der Berliner Gesellschaft fur Experimen-

tal-Psychologie' mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung ihrer Ausganpssitua-
tion und des Wirkens von Max Dessoir, Diss. med., Free University of
Berlin, 1976.
- 21 -
designation.^
Whatever it was not, the Leipzig institute definitely was productive.
Its output, combined with Wundt's own theoretical and methodological ar
ticles, was more than sufficient to fill the annual numbers of the Philo-
sophische Studien without outside help. The total of 186 dissertations
produced at Leipzig under Wundt's tutelage is certainly impressive, as
well, even allowing for the forty-five year time span involved.However,
according to one estimate, seventy of these dissertations treated philo
sophical topics not directly related to experimental psychology?.and it
is well-known that Wundt dedicated his own work in his Leipzig years in
creasingly to logic, systematic philosophy, ethics, natural philosophy

52
and ethnological psychology. Actually, Wundt's career from the 1880s
on could be described as an attempt to gain a secure, if limited, concept
ual and institutional location for experimental psychology while also de-
53
monstrating his own worthiness to "belong" to philosophy proper.
This was the strategy of a canny academic politician. Even so, offi
cial response to Wundts efforts was slow. The institute did not receive
50 Marilyn E. Marshall and Russel A. Wendt, "Wilhelm Wundt, Spiritism and

the Assumptions of Science", in Bringmann and Tweney, eds., Wundt
Studies, 158-75. Danziger, "Wundt's Experiment", pp. 119 ff.
51 Miles A. Tinker, "Wundt's Doctorate Students and Their Theses, 1875-

1920", American Journal of Psychology, 44 (1932), 630-37, reprinted
in Bringmann and Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, 269-79.
52 Tinker, in Wundt Studies, p. 278. On Wundt's "philosophical" years,

from the 1880s onward, see Boring, History, esp. 325 ff. The most
accurate contemporary account of Wundt's philosophy in English is
Charles H. Judd, "Wundt's System of Philosophy", Philosophical Review
6 (1897), 370-85; a more complete German account is Edmund Konig,
Wilhelm Wundt als Psycholog und Philosoph, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1902).
53 Erhard Eschler, "Wilhelm Wundt und das wissenschaftliche Weltbild

seiner Zeit", Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie, 19 (1971), 1250-
65, esp. p. 1257.
- 22 -
a regular budget and its courses were not listed in the university cata-
54
logue until 1883, four years after its foundation. The response of
Wundt*s philosopher colleagues and the educated public was not immediate
ly favorable, either. After travelling to Leipzig and other German univer
sities with the aid of a stipend from the French ministry of education,
finile Durkheim reported in 1887 that
Wundt's example is hardly followed at all; in his own country he

even encounters stiff resistance ... I am acquainted with very
well-educated Germans who have attended the university in Leip
zig, but have discovered Wundts work for the first time during
a trip to France. They surely have not heard his name for the
first time in Paris, but certainly of his great reputation in
the scientific world.55
In the same report, Durkheim noted that the majority of the students work
ing in Wundt *s laboratory at the time of his visit were preparing to
take their degrees not in philosophy, but in mathematics and the natural
science s . W u n d t made the same observation in 1893, adding that most
of the philosophy students were preparing to become Gymnasium teachers. ^
As Wundt's international reputation increased, however, and as ge-
54 Dorothea Fensch, "Zur Rolle Wilhelm Wundts bei der Institutionalisie-

rung der Psychologie in Leipzig, in Psychologiehistorische Manuskrip-
te (Berlin, G.D.R., 1977), 60-66. Cf. Bringmann, et al., "The Establish
ment of Wundt's Laboratory", in Wundt Studies, pp. 149-50.
55 Emile Durkheim, "La philosophie dans les universites allemandes", Revue

de 1'ensiegnement, 13 (1887), 31338, 423-40, here p. 331, quoted in
Metraux, "Wilhelm Wundt", pp. 92-93.
56 Durkheim, quoted in Alexandre Metraux, "Die zeitgenosische Wurdigung

des Wundtschen Instituts durch den franzosischen Soziologen Durkheim",
in Wilhelm Wundt: Progressives Erbe, Wissenschaftsentwicklung, Gegen-
wart (Leipzig, 1980), p. 251.
57 Wundt, "Psychophysik und experimentelle Psychologie", p. 456.
- 23 -
nerally improved economic conditions helped to make more money available
for science in general, the government of Saxony took what he termed
"the decisive step", providing spacious quarters and a substantial budget

58
for his institute in 1897. But the strategy of "peopling", which had
been so successful in the case of physiology, yielded less impressive
results in the case of Wundts laboratory. By his own count, Wundt had
had seventeen assistants by 1909. Of these, five ended up teaching at
Leipzig, four in foreign countries, and only three - Oswald Kulpe, Ernst
Durr and Ernst Meumann - obtained permanent positions in other German
speaking universities. The others apparently did not go into academic psy
chology.^
The picture improves slightly when we add those scholars who wrote
their Babilitationsschrift with Wundt, not all of whom served as his assis
tants. Of thirteen such scholars, six ended up teaching either in Leipzig
or in foreign countries, and six, including Kulpe and Durr, obtained po-
6o
sitions in other German-speaking universities. By 1914, a total of se
ven of Wundts "students" had obtained full professorships in German-speak
ing universities outside the master's own sphere of influence in Leipzig.
Of course, more than one physiological institute had served as a provider
of laboratory-trained scientists in the generation after 1850; nor could
Wundt have been expected to train all of Germanys experimenting psycholo
gists himself. In fact, he did not.
58 Wundt, Erlebtes, p. 305.
59 Wundt, "Das Institut fur experimentelle Psychologie", pp. 118-19, 121-22.
60 The thirteen scholars are listed in Ben-David and Collins, "Social

Factors", p. 456. The single borderline case is Hugo Minsterberg, who
left a position at Freiburg to go to Harvard.
- 24 -
4. The Institutionalization of Experimental Psychology:

From Single Institute to Scientific Comnnmity
The ocher men who institutionalized experimental psychology in Ger
many were not philosophical autodidacts like Wundt, but themselves trained
philosophers. Their aim was not to "revolutionize philosophy, as Joseph
Ben-David has asserted, but to gain "the advantage their competence in a
distinct scientific specialty gave them in what was becoming a highly
competitive, specialized d i s c i p l i n e . F o r legitimating support in this
effort they aligned themselves with important figures in other fields,
particularly physiology. The list of names assembled for the masthead of
the first issue of the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie und Physiologie der
Sinnesorgane, founded by Hermann Ebbinghaus and Arthur Konig in 1890, in
cluded five of the most distinguished physiologists of the day: Hermann
Aubert, Sigmund Exner, Ewald Hering, Johannes von Kries, and Wilhelm
Preyer, along with the world's most prominent former physiologist, Her
mann von Helmholtz. The philosophers, in addition to Ebbinghaus, were
Theodor Lipps, G.E. Muller and Carl Stumpf. "The tasks and goals of the
journal", it was announced in the unsigned "Introduction", "are indicated
by just these names. The journal strives for a unification of persons

62
and views in the scientific service of a great, unified cause."
61 Ben-Davids statement that "in Germany the purpose of the psycholo

gists was to revolutionize philosophy as an academic discipline" is
in Scientists Role, p. 128. As evidence for it he cites "Social Fac
tors' , but in neither place is evidence offered to show that the psy
chologists intentions were in fact "revolutionary". The other quo
tation is from the critique of "Social Factors" by Dorothy Ross, "On
the Origins of Psychology", American Sociological Review. 32 (1967),
p. 467. For contemporary evidence on specialization in German philo
sophy, see Julius Baumann, "Philosophie", in Wilhelm Lexis, ed., Die
Deutschen UniversitSten, vol. 1, 427-49.
62 "Zur Einfiihrung", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie und Physiologie der Sin
- 25 -
This was an oblique reference to Wundt's journal, which had included con
tributions from none of these authors.
The connection to physiology involved more than the use of names on
an editorial board. To secure their own positions.and those of their
successors, the experimenting psychologists also made use of the institu
tional innovations imported by Wundt from that field, particularly the
research laboratory and its corresponding assistantships. Four of these
philosopher-scientists, Ebbinghaus, Miller, Stumpf, and Oswald Kulpe, a
student of Wundt and Miller who took a decidedly independent line, establish
ed or significantly expanded seven of the thirteen psychological institutes
which existed in Germany by 1914 (see table one).
These men, along with Ernst Meumann, were in many respects the real
founders of experimental psychology in Germany as a network of social in
stitutions strictly bound neither to the traditional rubrics of the univer
sity system nor to the confines of a single university. The Zeitschrift
fur Psychologie and the Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, founded by
Meumann in 1903, became the dominant journals of experimental and general
psychology, respectively, open to contributions from the entire German
speaking world and beyond. The "Society for Experimental Psychology" was
organized in 1904 by Miller, the Giessen psychiatrist Robert Sommer, and
Friedrich Schumann, then assistant to Stumpf in Berlin. Its 104 original
members included, professors of philosophy and physiology, physicans and
Gymnasium teachers, representatives in fact of "all lines of thought, in
so far as they based themselves upon experimental psychology", as Sommer
nesorgane, 1 (1890), p. 3. Emphasis in the original. The journal

will be cited in future as Zeitschrift fur Psychologie.
- 26 -
TABLE ONE: Psychological Institutes in Germany, 1879-1914+
Year
Founded University Founder Remarks
1879 Leipzig Wilhelm Wundt private; officially

recognized 1883
1886 Berlin Hermann Ebbinghaus private; officially

founded C. Stumpf 1894
1887 Gottingen Georg Elias Muller Psychological Dept, of

:Philosophical Seminar
1889 Munich Carl Stumpf private; endowed seminar

founded T. Lipps 1894,
expanded 0. Kulpe 1912
1889 Freiburg Hugo Munsterberg Psychological Depti of

Philosophical Seminar
continued J. Cohn
1894 Breslau Hermann Ebbinghaus continued W. Stern 1907
1896 Wurzburg Oswald Kulpe expanded K. Marbe 1909
1898 Kiel Gotz Martius
1904 Frankfurt Karl Marbe continued F. Schumann 1909
1905 Halle Hermann Ebbinghaus continued F. Krueger 1910
1905++ Munster Eduard Meumann continued E. Becher 1909
1907++ Konigsberg Narziss Ach
1909 Bonn Oswald Kulpe expansion of seminar

founded by B. Erdmann
1912 Marburg Erich Jaensch
Based on the listing in Henrik Misiak and Virginia Staudt Sexton,

History of Psychology: An Overview (New York, 1967), p. 56, revised
and supplemented from other sources.
++ Year of professorial appointment; year of institute founding not

clear from available sources.
+++ Commercial academy; university founded 1914.
- 27 -
63
stated in a later reminiscence. These organs for the exchange of infor
mation, along with others described above for the exchange of personnel,
constituted the sort of communication network which scholars today have
come to view as the operating basis of a "scientific c o m m u n i t y . I t
was within this social and institutional network, especially at the biannual
meetings of the "Society", that younger experimenting psychologists report
ed their results and demonstrated their abilities to relevant colleagues.
Although some of the scientists involved in organizing this network,
including all of those whose names appeared on the masthead of Meumann fs
Archiv, had been students of Wundt, the establishment of both the Zeitschrift
fur Psychologie and the "Society for Experimental Psychology" was notable
for the conspicuous absence or at most the ritual invocation of his name.
Laden with particularly significant ambiguity was the unanimous vote of
the Society at its first meeting, "at the request of Eerr Kulpe ... to send
a telegram of greeting to Herr Geheimrat Wundt as the Nestor of experi
mental psychology".^ Of course, the term "Nestor" was conventionally
applied to esteemed older colleagues. Readers who know the Iliad, however,
will remember that although Nestor, the revered sage of the Greek hosts,
was always heard with respect, his advice and dark warnings were rarely
63 Robert Sommer, "Zur Geschichte der Kongresse fur experimentelle Psycho

logie", in Gustav Kafka, ed., Bericht uber den "IZ. Kongress der Deut-
schen Gesellschaft fur Psychologie... 1931 (Jena, 1932), p. 9.
64 Warren 0. Hagstrom would probably call this an example of the formation

of a scientific community by "dispersion and isolation": The Scienti
fic Community (New York, 1965), pp. 224-25. Other sociologists call
the process of "migration" to a new method or problem area and the
formation of networks of scientists to discuss common problems and
findings "branching": Michael J. Mulkay, "Three Models of Scientific
Development", The Sociological Review, 23 (1975), 509-26.
65 Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den I. Kongress fur experimentel

le Psychologie... 1904 (Leipzig, 1904), p. xxiii.
- 28 -
heeded.
Specifically rejected here were Wundts definition of the psycho
logical subject as the "psychical individual" and his limitations on
the use of experimentation. Ebbinghaus, Muller, Kulpe, Meumann und their
students developed techniques for the experimental study of memory,
aesthetic judgments, abstraction, even thought itself, and proclaimed
the "corporeal individual" or, more elegantly, the organism to be their

66
proper subject. In addition, and in even more flagrant disregard of
Wundt's views, some of these psychologists, particularly Ebbinghaus, Meu
mann and William Stem, searched eagerly for ways of applying their me
thods to social problems, especially in education. Wundt, who original
ly supported the foundation of Meumann*s Archiv, resigned from the edi
torial board in protest after only one year, suggesting pointedly that the
name of the journal ought to be changed from "Archive for all of Psycholo
gy" to "Archive for Education and Psychology".^
Despite their organizing zeal and their evident dedication to experi
mental methods, these scientists did not press at first for the creation
of independent chairs and institutes for experimental psychology; nor did
they campaign for new chairs of psychology within philosophy. In view of
the relative slowness of German state governments to establish new full
professorships and the skepticism of at least some cultural officials about

68
the new fields scientific legitimacy, perhaps their caution was justified.
66 Kurt Danziger, "The Positivist Repudiation of Wundt", Jour. Hist. Behav.

Sci., 15 (1979), 5-30. Por further discussion of the new experimenta
lists views, see part two.
67 Wolfgang G. Bringmann and Gustav A. Ungerer, "Experimental versus

Educational Psychology: Wilhelm Wundts Letters to Ernst Meumann",
Psychological Research, 42 (1980), 57-74, esp. pp. 69-71.
68 For evidence of bureaucrat^ doubts about psychology, see Riese, Die
- 29 -
Instead, they competed with other philosophers, sometimes with one another,
for calls to already existing chairs, and then negotiated with ministerial
officials to obtain funds and facilities for their experimental work as
a condition of their acceptance.
Apparently this was a fruitful strategy, at least during the genera
tion from 1890 to 1910. While the number of full professorships of philo
sophy in Germany increased only ten per cent in those years, from 44 to 48,
the number of these positions held by experimenting psychologists more

69
than tripled in the same period from three to ten. It was in this pe
riod, and not earlier, that German became the primary language of publi
cation in psychology. The proportion of all psychological books and artic
les in that language doubled from 23 per cent in 1894 to 46 per cent in
For the longer term, however, precisely this success posed diffi
cult academic-political problems. There were enough philosophy chairs to
accommodate at least some of the experimenting psychologists; and the money
Hochschule, p. 110.
69 For the number of philosophy professorships, see von Ferber, Entwick-

lung, p. 207. For the experimenting psychologists, see table one,
above, and subtract the names of William Stem, who was not yet a full
professor, and of Eduard Meumann and Hermann Ebbinghaus, who both
died in 1909. These figures do not agree exactly with the informal
count in Max Frischeisen-Kohler, "Philosophy und Psychologie", Die
Geistfeswissenschaften, 1 (1914), p. 371, which gives fewer philosophy
chairs.
70 J.B. Mailer, "Forty Years of Psychology: A Statistical Analysis of

American and European Publications 1894-1933", Psychological Bulletin,
31 (1934), 533-59, esp. p. 539. See also Ben-David, Scientist's Role,
Fig. 2, p. 196.
- 30 -
was available to provide the laboratory space and equipment which they
said they required. In practice, the primacy of pedagogy remained in
effect. Traditionally the single professor of philosophy at each univer
sity had been expected to survey the entire discipline in his lectures.
As specialization within the field and the total number of professorships
increased, this demand could be eased somewhat. But there were other phi
losophical specialties besides psychology; and even at the best-financed
universities professors were still expected to be able to teach more
than one of them, a requirement which younger psychologists would find
increasingly difficult to meet as experimental methods became more de
manding and thus research more time-consuming. Nor was it by any means
clear that expertise in psychology as a subspecialty of philosophy neces
sarily required mastery of experimental methods. Despite the vast social
and economic changes which had occurred in nineteenth-century Germany,
the concept of humanistic Bildung and the idealistic conception of "pure"
science (Wissenschaft) upon which the status of philosophy had original
ly been based had not lost their legitimating hold upon either the educated
public or upon the academic community, the experimenting psychologists
included.
4. Carl Stumpf and the Berlin Institute
The career of Carl Stumpf reveals some of the complex results such a
situation could have. Born in 1848 in the village of Wiesenthied in Fran
conia, Stumpf came from an academically trained family. His father was a
provincial court physician, his fathers father a historian and his mothers
- 31 -
father, from whom he learned Latin, was also in medical jurisprudence.^*
After completing the Gymnasium course in Aschaffenburg, he began his univer
sity studies in Wurzburg in 1865. There he met and became a disciple of
Franz Brentano, who inspired him with ambitious plans for a revival of
Christian philosophy based on rigorous study of both classical and Scholastic
thought and of empirical psychology.
Brentano argued for an empirical metaphysics based upon the "evidence",
or evident truth, of the logical axioms and the facts of introspection,
which he called "inner perception". As he explained it in a lecture Stumpf
heard in 1869: "'Even God cannot make it evident to us that red is a sound
or 2 + 1 = 4. His will would thereby contradict itself. He who denies

72
Him this power does not deny His perfection but rather His imperfection."
Evident truth thus inheres in the object of knowledge, not in our grasp of
it; but we still need to know how we are constituted so that we might have
access to such knowledge. This was the task of empirical psychology, the
discovery and classification of the facts of "inner perception" and the
basic types of mental states. Though he lectured publicly on Comte, corres
ponded with Mill, and encouraged his students to study the natural sciences
and physiology, it was this complex of metaphysical goals and. logical and
psychological analysis that he had in mind when he boldly asserted in his
inaugural lecture in 1866 that "the true method of philosophy is none other
71 The most extensive account of Stumpfs life and views is his autobio
graphy in Raymond Schmidt, ed., Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbst-
darstellungen, vol. 5 (Leipzig, 1924), 205-65, trans. Thekla Hodge and
Suzanne Langer, in Carl Murchison, ed., A History of Psychology in Au
tobiography, vol. 1 (Worchester, Mass., 1930), 389-441. See also
Boring, History, pp. 362-371.
72 Carl Stumpf, "Reminiscences of Franz Brentano" (1919), trans. Linda L.

McAlister and Margarete Shattle, in Linda McAlister, ed., The Philosophy
of Franz Brentano (London, 1976), p. 18.
- 32 -
73
than that o the natural sciences." As Stumpf remembered it later, "We
were especially happy that ... he based his hopes for a rebirth of philo
sophy on this method. It was a new, incomparably deeper and more serious
74
way of understanding philosophy."
After a year of work together, Brentano sent Stumpf to Gottingen to
take his degree with Lotze, another proponent of empirical metaphysics.
There he received a thorough grounding in epistemology and also studied
physiology and physics, the latter with Wilhelm Weber. After completing his
doctoral thesis on the relationship of Plato's God to his idea of the Good
in 1868, Stumpf returned to Wurzburg for further studies with Brentano,
and even considered following him into the priesthood. Aided in part by
Lotze's encouragement, he finally decided for the university, submitting
his second thesis on the mathematical axioms in Gottingen in 1870. Although
he had begun his career in "pure" philosophy, he had learned from both
his teachers to respect psychological research and to recognize its rele
vance to philosophical issues.^
In his first major book, on the psychological origins of the idea
of space, Stumpf turned to such empirical work. There he applied the me
thods he had learned from Brentano against Lotze's supposition of retinal
factors called "local signs" to explain the perception of depth. Spatiality,
he claimed, is a "partial content" of consciousness, an immediately given
datum of the same order as the sensory qualities themselves. This fact finds
73 Quoted in Oskar Kraus, "Biographical Sketch of Franz Brentano" (1919),

trans. Linda L. McAlister, in The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, p. 4.
74 Stumpf, "Reminiscences" in McAlister, Brentano, p. 11.
75 For Stumpf's acknowledgement of his debt to Lotze, see "Zum Gedachtnis

Lotzes", Kant Studien, 22 (1917), 1-26.
- 33 -
expression in simple judgments such as "the color is extended" or "the
extension is colored". According to Stumpf, these are both references
to the same psychologically real "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt).
Spatiality is thus an attribute of what Brentano called the unity of
consciousness, a psychological fact which need not be explained as the
product of Kantian categories of apperception or of learned interpreta-

76
tions of physiological "local signs".
Stumpfs skillful defense of "psychological nativism" and the endorse
ments of both Brentano and Lotze won him one of the two chairs of philoso
phy at Wurzburg in 1873, three months after his teacher had left the catho
lic church and resigned from his own associate professorship because he
refused to accept the doctrine of Papal infallibility.^ Brentanos appoint
ment to a full professorship in Vienna the next year put him in a excel
lent position to support his students1 careers in Austria-Hungary, at
least during the period of liberal ascendancy there. He suggested Stumpf
for a professorship in Prague, which was offered and accepted in 1879.
Stumpf later said he was glad to get away from Wurzburg, where a "heretical
78
Catholic" such as he had become could not feel at home.
Though he lacked laboratory facilities in Prague, Stumpf was nonethe-
76 Stumpf, fiber den psychologischen TJrsprung der Raumvorstellung (Leipzig,

1873), esp. 110 ff. Cf. Stumpf, "Zum Begriff der Lokalzeichen",
Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 4 (1893), 70-74. For Brentanos doctrine
of the unity of consciousness, see his Psychologie vom empirischen
Standpunkt, vol. 1 (1874), ed. Oskar Kraus (Hamburg 1959), chap. 2.
For Stumpf *s acknowledgment of Brentanos influence upon the formu
lation of this argument, see Stumpf, "P.eminiscences", in McAlister,
Brentano, pp. 42-43.
77 Stumpf, "Reminiscences", in McAlister, Brentano, pp. 27 ff., esp. 33-

34. Boring, in History, incorrectly implies that Stumpf succeeded to
Brentano's position.
78 Stumpf, "Autobiography", p. 398.
- 34 -
less able to complete the first volume of his masterwork, Tonpsychologie,
in 1883. He later confessed that his work in acoustics was not only a
way of combining his interest in philosophy and his love of music, but also
a means of making a useful contribution without having to depend too heavi
ly upon the lectures of this teacher, who had published little after his
79
programmatic book Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874). The
bulk of the work was devoted to careful observations made on himself, show
ing that psychological factors were immediately influential in hearing,
and thus implying the insufficiency of the strictly "physical" (or physio
logical) approach taken by Helmholtz twenty years before. He emphasized
both his affiliation with philosophy and his identification with Brentanos
conception of it by saying that psychophysical research would eventually

80
lead to a "measuring theory of judgment" (messende Urteilslehre). For
this work he was called to positions in Halle in 1884 and Munich in 1889.
Stumpf *s dedication to the ideal of an empirical, but not empiricist, phi
losophy supported by the methods of the natural sciences had thus brought
hr ~i appointments to four full professorships before he was forty-five.
Such rewards must have shown him that there was indeed room in the
philosophers guild for experimenting psychologists. Nevertheless, he
was aware of the tensions within that guild, and he consistently emphasized
the need to keep psychological and epistemological concerns at least con
ceptually separate. In his 1891 essay "Psychology and Epistemology", he
sharply reminded Neo-Kantians of both the Marburg and the Southwest German
schools that no discussions of a priori judgment or "forms of understanding"
79 Stumpf, "Reminiscences", in McAlister, Brentano, p. 43.
80 Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1883), p. 43.
- 35 -
can be developed without presupposing some kind of psychology:

81
something cannot be epistemologically true and psychologically false."
Nonetheless, the two words axe names for two different tasks, and it would
be inappropriate to try to reduce one to the other. Psychologys purpose
is to investigate "the origin of concepts" empirically, to determine "the
most exact characterization of the aspects and modes of alteration of
ideas" as they appear to the experiencing subject - "the finest analysis
of the given". That of epistemology, on the other hand, is to seek out and
determine the logical grounding of "the most general, immediately evident

82
truths", such as the geometrical axioms.
Distinctions like this could have been used to justify the existence
of an independent field of psychology based, perhaps, upon a version of
evolutionary theory. Stumpfs use of the term "origin" (Prsprung), how
ever, had only indirectly if at all to do with historical or ontogenetic
causation, but was rather more closely related to Lotze's distinction be
tween the "genesis" (Genesis) and the validity (Geltung) of ideas, original-
83
ly intended to differentiate epistemology and logic. Different as the
tasks of psychology and epistemology may be, both in goal and in method,
Stumpf insisted that they do not belong to different disciplines; for neither
can be performed without the other.
The theorist of knowledge cannot ignore the issue of the origin

of the concepts (whose general meaning he analyses); he must be
fully engaged in the depths and difficulties of this problem as
an expert. The psychologist must at the same time be a theorist
of knowledge, not only because judgments of knowledge are a spec
ial class of judgment-phenomenon ... but primarily because he
81 Stumpf, "Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie", Abhandl. der konigl. bayr.

Akad. der Wiss., I. KL. 18 (1891), p. 482.
82 Stumpf, "Psychologie", pp. 501, 491, 502.

83 Cf. Rudolf Hermann Lotze, Logik (Leipzig, 1874), book 3, chap. 4.
- 36 -
oust have clarity about the fundamental gasis of all knowledge,

as anyone must for idiom science is more than artisanry (ein Hand-
werk). S4
Stumpf gave no reason why experimental psychologists could not also study
epistemology without becoming professional philosophers. Instead, he
pursued a careful double argument, stressing philosophy's need for exper
tise in empirical psychology while simultaneously depicting experimenta
tion for its own sake as "artisanry", a respectable but definitely lower-
status activity.
The conception of empirical psychology as experimental phenomenology,
with its stress on the experiencing subject, and the idea of psychological
research as a propadeutic to "higher" philosophical concerns must have
been attractive to Wilhelm Dilthey, the eminence grise of Berlin philosophy
in those years. Dilthey was also working just then on the boundary between
psychology and epistemology, and Stumpf discussed his essay on the origin
of our belief in the existence of the external world not unsympathetically

85
near the end of "Psychology and Epistemology".
Then, in his well-known essay "Ideas Concerning Descriptive and
Analytical Psychology" (1894), Dilthey began to develop a psychology of
his own which would serve as the foundation of a general philosophy of
the historical and cultural sciences. Here he explicitly cited Stumpf's
work on phenomena of tonal fusion as evidence for the inadequacy of the
"dominant" psychology, which would "explain the constitution of the mental
84 Stumpf, "Psychologie", p. 508.
85 Wilhelm Dilthey, "Beitrage zur Losung der Frage vomUrsprung unseres

Glaubens an die Realitat der Aussenwelt und seinem Recht" (1890),
in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5 (ed. Georg Misch 1923), 6th ed. (Got
tingen, 1974), 90-138; Stumpf, "Psychologie", pp. 507-8, n. 1.
- 37 -
world mechanistically, according to hypotheses about its components,
forces, and laws, "in the same way as physics and chemistry explain the
86
physical world." Dilthey was not opposed to experimentation as one
potentially useful method of learning about consciousness. He stressed,
however, that
Psychology depends upon different approaches which compensate

for each other's defects. It combines awareness and observation
of ourselves, understanding of other people, comparative proce
dure, experiment, and the study of analogous phenomena. It seeks
entry into mental life through many gates.87
Invoking the now-famous dictum, "die Natur erklaren wir, das Seelenleben
verstehen wir" (we explain nature; we understand, or intuitively grasp,
the life of the mind), he called for "a psychology which values expla-
88
natory construction only secondarily, with an awareness of their limits."
It was no coincidence that this essay appeared the year after Carl
Stumpf was called from his chair in Munich to a full professorship in
Berlin, by far the most prestigious German university. Dilthey had ex
pressed interest in bringing Stumpf to Berlin as early as 1892, and in a
letter of 1895 he clearly states that it was he who arranged the appoint-
89
ment. Apparently he saw Stumpf as an ally in his struggle on behalf of
86 Dilthey, "Ideen uber eine beschreibende und zergliedemde Psycholo

gic" (1894) in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, 139-240, here p. 139.
Stumpf's work on tonal fusion, in Tonpsychologie, vol. 2 (Leipzig,
1890), is cited on p. 184.
87 Dilthey, "Ideen", p. 199.
88 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 144, 193.
89 Briefwechsel zwischen Dilthey und dem Grafen Paul Yorck von Wartenburg
1877-1897 (Halle, 1923). No. 94, Yorck to Dilthey, 2 September 1892:
The question of space leads me to Stumpf. You will not get him to
Berlin, so long as Helmholtz lives." No. 121, Dilthey to Yorck, 13 Octo-
- 38 -
the historical and cultural sciences: "Stumpf had already refused; my inter
vention prevented the complete radicalization of philosophy here by the

90
natural sciences," he asserted.
Stumpf, it must be said, never took the doctrinaire view of the
natural sciences that Dilthey did. He expressed his own, more modest
intentions for psychology at Berlin in letters he wrote at the time to
Friedrich Althoff. To fill the vacancy created by the death of the histo
rian of philosophy Eduard Zeller, the members of Berlin's philosophical
faculty had recommended Stumpf ahead of G.E. Miller and Senno Erdmann be
cause they saw in him the man best equipped both to lecture in psychology
and history of philosophy and to build a psychological institute at Berlin

91
which could compete with Wundt's at Leipzig. Althoff had already de
veloped and submitted to Prussian Finance Minister Miquel a proposed bud
get for the new institute, including an initial outlay of 30,500 marks
and an annual budget of 5,090 marks, more than double Leipzig's yearly
92
figure at the time.
Such an offer might well have been very attractive to Stumpf. The
closest he had ever come to having a laboratory of his own was the space
ber 1895: after an angry passage criticizing Wundt for only mention
ing him once in a long section of one of his works devoted to the
concept of inner experience, "to do this, as is his habit - naturally
because I arranged Stumpf's appointment!"
90 Briefwechsel, No. 1Q7,Dilthey to Yorck, 1 November 1893.
91 The recommendation of the philosophical faculty, dated 13July1893,

is in Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. IV Nr. 61 Bnd. 6
Bl. 193-208.
92 Althoff to Miquel,10 August 1893, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76 Va

Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150 Bnd. 1 Bl. 13-14.
- 39 -
which had been made available to him in Munich, which "consisted of the
attic floor of a high tower and a cabinet in the hall, where he kept tuning-
93
forks that he could use in the lecture-room on Sunday." As he later
recalled, however, it had bean "impossible to found an institute". When
he had requested an annual appropriation of 500 marks from the Bavarian
government for this purpose, ministry officials told him that he would have
to go before the legislature to secure it, and there face charges of "ma
terialism". The real reason for the difficulty, Stumpf said, was his "de
cided opposition to certain ecclesiastical wishes, shared by the court,
in regard to the Academy.".94
In fact, however, Stumpf reacted quite negatively to Althoff*s grandiose
plans. First he asked for time to think the matter over, and to consider
any counter-offer the Bavarian government might make to keep him in Munich.
95
Then he refused the appointment. A flurry of letters followed, as both
Dilthey, who had actually been involved from the beginning, and Althoff
96
tried to persuade Stumpf to change his mind. When Althoff finally wrote
that he was firmly resolved "to win you for Berlin" and asked him to simply
97
name his conditions, Stumpf explained his position as follows:
93 Boring, History, p. 365.
94 Stumpf, "Autobiography", pp. 401-02. "The Academy" was the Bavarian

Academy of Sciences; what the "ecclesiastical wishes" were, however,
remains unclear.
95 Stumpf to Althoff, 14 Sept. and 28 Sept. 1893, Zentrales Staatsarchiv,

Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. IV Nr. 61 Bnd. 6 Bl. 298301; Stumpf to Alt
hoff, 9 Oct. 1893, ibid., Bl. 303.
96 Dilthey to Althoff, 10 Oct. 1893; Althoff to Dilthey, 13 Oct. 1893;

Stumpf of Althoff, 14 Oct.; Dilthey to Althoff, 15 Oct., Zentrales
Staatsarchiv, ibid., Bl. 305-07, 309-11.
97 Althoff to Stumpf, 17 Oct. 1893, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, ibid., Bl. 314.
- 40 -
The primary motive which caused me to hesitate until now was...

the worry that I would not find the peace and concentration
necessary for the completion of scientific projects on which I
am now at work. I believed especially that I could not recon
cile this with the expenditure of time and energy required for
the founding and leadership of a psychological institute... As
far as the institute is concerned, I would like to suggest that,
instead of such an institute as exists in Leipzig, only a psy
chological seminar be established, with the task of supporting
and supplementing the lectures by means of laboratory exercises
and demonstrations. The carrying out of scientific work for
publication would naturally not be excluded but would not be
among the essential purposes of the seminar... I am very concerned
that the Royal Government and the (philosophical) faculty not
promise themselves more from my influence than I am able to pro
vide... I am in any case of the n n i m on that large-scale research
in experimental psychology has objective difficulties as well...
for my part I could not decide, now or later, to follow the example
of Wundt and the Americans in this direction.
Dilthey and Althoff hastened to alleviate Stumpf's concerns on this
score; Althoff sweetened the offer with a generous increase over his
Munich salary and a promise of adequate space for lectures, demonstrations,

99
and his own research. Acceptance followed quickly. The new seminar,
founded with an initial expenditure of 6,000 marks, a single assistant,
and an annual budget of only 1,000 marks, began operation with Stumpf's
arrival in Berlin in the summer semester of 1894.^^
98 Stumpf to Althoff, Oct. 20 Oct. 1893, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, ibid.,

Bl. 317-20. Emphasis mine. "The Americans" were students of Wundt
who had returned to organize similar laboratories in their homeland.
99 Althoff to Stumpf, 22 Oct.; Stumpf to Althoff, 25 Oct., Zentrales

Staatsarchiv, ibid., Bl. 321-22, 245.
100 Agreement Althoff-Stumpf, 12 Dec. 1893, Zentrales Staatsarchiv, ibid.,

Bl. 327-29. In his official letter recommending Stumpf to the royal
household, Althoff took care to note that "In confessional matters
Stumpf is a man of very mild views," as shown by the fact "that he
married a Protestant and let his children be raised in the evangelical
(Lutheran) faith". Zentrales Staatsarchiv, ibid., Bl. 256. The remark
was particularly significant in view of the Protestantism of the ro
yal family and the fact that Stumpf had been trained in part by Bren
tano, who was rejected violently in some quarters for his "scholasti-
- 41 -
As time went on, however, enrollment in the seminar's laboratory
courses increased dramatically, from twenty-five in 1894 to more than
fifty in 1907, while attendance at Stumpf's psychology lecture quintupled
from fifty to 250 in the same p e r i o d . S t u m p f altered his opinion about
the size of his budget accordingly. Beginning in 1898, he petitioned the
ministry repeatedly for additional funds, space, equipment, and staff,
making pointed comparisons each time to the other leading German labora-
102
torxes in Leipzig, Gottingen and Wurzburg. The Prussian government
proved responsive to these appeals. Upon moving into new and larger quar
ters in 1900, the seminar officially became an institute, and by 1912 it
could boast a budget of 4,400 marks, more than four times that of 1894.
As the accompanying table shows, this made it the second largest psycholo
gical laboratory in German physically and the best supported financially.
cism" despite his dissident views on the infallibility of the Pope.

Althoff did not mention Brentano. Stumpf later acknowledged in a
letter to a colleague that he had remained f o r m a ll y a Catholic, "but
in following my philosophical convictions I have distanced myself
so much from the beliefs of the church that I could not possibly
participate in church elections ... my only religious act is the pay
ment of taxes for both confessions." Stumpf to "verehrtester Herr
Professor" (unidentified), 23 September 1909, in Staatsbibliothek
Preussischer Rulturbesitz, Berlin, Handschriften Abteilung, Sammlung
Darmstaedter.
101 The enrollment figures are in Uhiversitatsarchiv der Humboldt-Univer-

sitat zu Berlin, Chronik der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu Berlin,
1894 ff. See also Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76, Va Sekt. 2 Tit.
X Nr. 150 Bnd. 1, Bl. 308.
102 Petitions were made in 1898, 1900, 1906, 1907, 1911, and 1913. Zen
trales Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150 Bnd. 1,
Bl. 94-97, 126-32, 252-57, and esp. 306-13; Bnd. 2, Bnd. 2, Bl. 123-26,
159-61, 215-17.
- 42 -
TABLE TWO: Budgetary development, personnel and space allotments for

five psychological institutes in Germany, 1879-1914
Institute (Year Budgeta (Year) Personnel (Year) Rooms (Year)

Founded)
LEIPZIG (1879) 600 (1883) 1 prof. (1874) 2 (1879)

2,000 (1909) 1 asst. (1883) 5 (1883)
1 mech. (?) 11 (1892)
1 exist. (?) 14 (1896)
1 asst. (1894)
1 assoc. (1908)
prof.
BERLIN (1886) 1,000 (I894)b 1 prof. (1894) 2 (1886)

1,400 (1895) 1 asst. (1894) 3 (1894)
2,400 (1901) 2 cust. (1895) 10 (1900)
3,400 (1909) 1 cust,- (1900)
4,400 (1912) mech.
GOTTINGEN (1887) 500 (1887) 1 prof. (1881) 4 (1887)

700 (1901) 1 asst. (1901)
1,200 (1908)
1,500 (1914)
WURZBURG (1896) 280 (1896) 1 prof. (1894) 4-6 (?)

1,200 (1909) 1 assoc. (1902)
prof.
1 asst. (1904)
1 cust. (1906)
1 mech. (1910)
1 mech. (1912)
1 mech.
trainee (1912)
MUNICH (1889) 4,000 (1913) 1 prof. (1889) (?)

2 asst. (1913)
1 mech. (1913)
- 43 -
TABLE TWO: Abbreviations, Remarks, Sources
Abbreviations: prof. = professor; asst. = assistant; mech. = mechanic;

assoc, prof. = associate professor; cust. = custodian
Remarks
a "Budget" means all annual expenditures for the operation of the insti
tute in marks, including physical plant, apparatus and maintenance.
The budget figure for Leipzig, however, is for apparatus only.
b Additional single expenditures for new acquisitions and moving costs:

6.000 m. (1894); 7,300 m. (1900); 5,000 m. (1909); 5,000 m. (1914).
c This figure represents primarily plant and maintenance expenditures.

All instruments were obtained through private gifts or built by the
assistants.
d Additional income from the Leopold Schweisch Foundation: 2,000 m. per

year from 1906 on.
e Additional single expenditures for building renovation and acquisitions:

45.000 m. (1913).
Sources
Wilhelm Wundt, "Das Institut fur experimentelle Psychologie", in Festschrift

zur Feier des 500jahrigen Bestehens der Universitat Leipzig (Leipzig,
1909), vol. 4, 118-33.
Carl Stumpf, "Das Psychologische Institut", in Max Lenz, Geschichte der ko-
nigl. Friedrich-Wilhelmr-Universitat zu Berlin, Wissenschaftliche Anstal-
ten (Halle a.S., 1910), 202-07; information for the years 1909 ff. from
Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150 Bnd. 2 Bl.
167, 192.
Georg Elias Muller, "ErSffnungsansprache", in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Be-

richt iiber den VI. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1914 (Leip
zig, 1914), 103-09.
Karl Marbe, "Das Psychologische Institut", in Hundert Jahre bayrisch. Ein

Festbuch (Wurzburg, 1914), 106-09.
Oswald Kiilpe, letter to Carl Stumpf 22 March 1913, quoted in Zentrales Staats
archiv, Rep. 76, etc., Bnd. 2, Bl. 216.
- 44 -
Unfortunately, however, Stumpf was never granted a second full-time
assistant. He attempted to fill this gap with part-time and voluntary
help, but was still required to take over many of the beginning courses
and exercises himself. Perhaps this prevented him from completing the
103
projected third volume of his Tonpsychologie. It is also true, however,
that other activities made demands upon his time, especially his increasing
interest in ethnomusicology. Stumpf had already begun to study the music
of primitive peoples in the 1880s; but his location in Berlin, then a world
center for music and musicology and an important point of departure for
ethnographic expeditions, presented him with unparalleled opportunities
to pursue and expand this research.
In 1900 he set aside a room in the new psychological institute to
house the Phonogrammarchiv, a collection of Edison cylinders containing
samples of music recorded by traveling scholars and amateurs. At first
the collection was supported by private contributions, mostly from Stumpf*s
own pocket. From 1904 to 1909 came regular grants from the Virchow Founda
tion of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and additional private gifts. The
Ministry provided single appropriations of 3,600 marks in 1910 and 5,000 marks
in 1910, and the newly-established Albert Samson Foundation of the Academy
of Sciences guaranteed an annual grant of 5,000 marks in 1912, subsequent
ly raised to 7,000 marks. The activity required to raise these sums and
the amounts themselves - more than the institute's budget - testify effectively
103 This has been suggested by Albert Wellek in an encyclopedia article,

"Stumpf, Carl", in David Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences (New York, 1973), vol. 15, p. 351.
- 45 -
to the degree of Stumpfs commitment to this enterprise.
Despite the pressures of this and other commitments, and the lack of
sufficient paid staff to help him with the teaching load, Stumpf did not
limit student membership in his institute, as Wundt had done, because he
continued to view it as more a pedagogical than a research tool. As he
put it in 1909,
In such a young research tendency (n.b.: not "science" or "discipline")

with so little developed methodology, so many sources of error, such
great difficulties in the exact setting up and carrying through of
experiments, it could not be the main goal (of the institute) to pro
duce as many dissertations as possible. Instead, the leading aims
must be these two: first, support of the lectures by means of de
monstrations and excercises; second, provision of the necessary aids
for the experimental work of the director, the assistants and a few
especially advanced workers.*05
5. Stumpf1s Conception of Psychology and the Training of Scientists in

Berlin
Among these "few especially advanced workers" were nearly all of the
men who later became the founders or leading coworkers of Gestalt theory:
104 For a description of the collection and its purpose, see Carl Stumpf,
"Das Berliner Phonogrammarchiv", Internationale Wochenschrift fur Wis-
senschaft, Kunst und Technik, 22 February 1908; Stumpf*s use of the
material is exemplified in Die Anfanê der Musik (Leipzig, 1911).
Support from private donors is documented in letters from Stumpf to
Ludwig Darmstaedter, 5 and 29 July 1909 and 4 February 1912, Staats-
bibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Handschriftenahteilung,.
Sammlung Darmstaedter. Support from the Ministry, from the Academy
of Sciences and from Stumpf himself is described in Zentrales Staats
archiv, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150 Bnd. 2 Bl. 9-20, 52 ff.,
72 ff., 85-87. Stumpf was not above bringing politicians into his
fund-raising efforts. Each of his requests to the Ministry for funds
was accompanied by testimonial statements from Reichstag representa
tives, mainly from the liberal Freisinniger Verein.
105 Carl Stumpf, "Das Psychologische Institut", in Max Lenz, Geschichte

der konigl. Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu Berlin, vol. 3, Wissen-
schaftliche Anstalten (Halle a.S., 1910), p. 203.
- 46 -
Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, Adhemar Gelb und Kurt
Lewin. All but Wertheimer received their doctoral degrees for work done
in Berlin from 1906 to 1915, Koffka, Kohler and Lewin for experimental
work done under Stumpf's direction. Max Wertheimer spent two years work
ing in the Berlin institute before completing his dissertation under Os
wald Kulpe in Wurzburg in 1904, but then returned often to Berlin for re
search and discussion, especially with his close friend Erich von Hom-
hostel, Stumpf's assistant at the Phonogramniarchiv. True, all of these
scholar-scientists also studied at other universities, and certainly
there were other important philosophers at Berlin in those years, including
Friedrich Paulsen, Alois Riehl, Georg Simmel and Ernst Cassirer as well
as Dilthey. Nonetheless, in the strictly formal sense described above,
Carl Stumpf was the "master" under whom the Gestalt theorists learned their
trade as scientific psychologists. For this reason alone it would be well
to take yet a closer look at both the theoretical and the methodological
training offered at the Berlin institute between 1900 and 1910, especial
ly at the ideas and opinions of its director on the purpose and meaning
of experimental psychology.
In his acceptance speech upon his admission to the Prussian Academy
of Sciences in 1895, Stumpf, like many others so honored, spoke more open
ly than he had in the past about the fundamental bases of his life's work:
My larger works were rooted in the urgent wish not to indulge in

the too-and-fro talking (Hin- und Herreden) in only half understand
able, incompletely defined generalities, in which philosophical
speculation so easily loses itself, hut to investigate issues of
basic importance with the concrete material of specific phenomena
and in closest connection with the specialized sciences... We must
seriously attempt to carry out the injunction to grasp the general
in the particular, and the golden proverb: if you want to stride
into infinity, take finite routes in all directions! 106
106 Stumpf, "Antrittsrede", Sitzungsber. der Preuss. Akad. der Wiss.,
- 47 -
Here, too, be defended himself against the charge that he had "often left
the circle of philosophy" in the course of his empirical research; he had
no intention, he said, "of replacing philosophy with specialized investi
gations or positivistic worship of the facts ..
Stumpf made every effort to avoid even the appearance of over-spe-
cializiation in his teaching, as well. In his first year at Berlin, he
wrote to Althoff to complain that his "Psychological Seminar" had been
incorrectly designated as the "Seminar for Experimental Psychology" in the
university catalogue. He had specifically suggested the former name, he
wrote, "to avoid giving the impression that only experimental work is
planned, when I am also planning to link such work to theoretical exer
cises in philosophy." His lectures were entitled "simply psychology",
and not "experimental psychology", for the same reason. The narrower de
signation, Stumpf feared, could keep talented students away and "instead
attract a certain sort of American, whose whole aim is to become Dr. phil.
108
in the shortest possible time with the most mechanical work possible."
This combination of empirical training, broader philosophical intent
and academic exclusivity remained a consistent motif at Stumpf*s institute
throughout his tenure. In a speech given to inaugurate his term as rector
of the university in 1907, for example, Stumpf contrasted the bitter battles
of self-righteous idealistic system-builders with the "common understanding
1895, p. 736. Emphasis in the original.
107 Stumpf, "Antrittsrede", p. 737.
108 Stumpf to Althoff, 23 May 1894, ZentralesStaatsarchiv, Rep. 92 Alt

hoff B Nr. 182 Bnd. 4 Bl. 43-44. Emphasis in theoriginal.
- 48 -
division of labor, correction of one by the other and mutual recognition
of such corrections" which he claimed were characteristic of modern re
search, and contended that only this spirit of scientific progress in
both the humanities and the natural sciences could lead to a "rebirth
of philosophy". He therefore recommended that all students of philosophy
"lay hands" upon some field of concrete research as part of their education,
specifically suggesting a general background in the natural sciences and
physiology for psychologists.^^
Though Stumpf recognized the pedagogical usefulness to young philo
sophers of engagement in empirical science, the application of philosophy
to social or pedagogical issues was apparently another matter. In 1900,
at the same time that he was studying the unusual language development
of one of his children, he helped to organize a society for child psycho-
logy, primarily to encourage teachers to make and report observations in
their schools. In his opening address to the group, however, Stumpf cri
ticized the over-use of statistics by the "half-educated" (Halbgebildeten)
instead of the"previously educated" (Vorgebildeten) and warned his hearers
by citing Wilhelm Scherer on the brothers Grimm: "art and science are not goods
which can be acquired by the association and organization of the masses".*^
This openly elitist position may have been attractive to some; but as Stumpf
109 Stumpf, "Die Wiedergeburt der Philosophic", in Philosophische Reden

und Vortrage (Leipzig, 1910), esp. p. 177.
110 Stumpf, "Zur Methodik der Kinderpsychologie", Zeitschrift fur padago-

gische Psychologie, 2 (1900), 1-21, esp. pp. 19-20. The work on lan
guage development is "Eigenartige Sprachentwicklung eines Kindes",
ibid., 3 (1901), 419-47.
- 49 -
later recorded, the society declined in the end, partly because applied
psychology and the school reform movement were so prominent that "there
was no room left for a society with pronounced theoretical aims." When
one of his assistants, Hans Rupp, began to do work in applied psychology,
he did not interfere, but he did not take a hand himself, either. **^ For
Stumpf, evidently, the relationship of theory to practice flowed in only
one direction - first inward to psychology, then upward to philosophy.
Where, then, lay the route upward? What conception of psychology
was best suited to insure the progress of philosophy? Stumpf, like near
ly all of the German philosophers of his time, based his answer upon a
general theory of science, which in turn rested upon firmly held epistemo-
logical convictions. "The fundamental fault of Kantian philosophy", he
had said in 1891, "is the neglect of psychology", the refusal "to allow
112
any validity to what is sensibly given to us". By 1906, Stumpf had
made "the immediately given" the basis of all scientific work, in physics
as well as psychology. The difference lay not in the basic experiential
material of science, but in the way the sciences proceed from this common
. . . 113
beginning.
At first glance, this emphasis upon the primacy of the given appears
to have some similarity (relation) to the phenomenalism of Ernst Mach.
It was precisely in opposition co Mach, however, that Stumpf clarified his
111 Stumpf, "Autobiography", pp. 404-05.
112 Stumpf, "Psychologie", pp. 493, 479.
113 Stumpf, "Zur Einteilung der Wissenschaften", Abhandl. der konigl.

Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Cl., 1906 (published 1907),
pp. 5-6.
- 50 -
epistemological position. The "appearances" (Erscheinungen) are not
the subject matter of natural science but "only the starting point for
research and material for conceptualization" about the objects to which
they point. Their "inconstancy", correctly asserted by Hume and Mill,
can only be overcome by hypotheses; and in the natural sciences the only
fruitful hypothesis is that of "a world of things, existing independently
of consciousness but connected within itself according to causal laws."
The conceptual constructions of science, then, are hypotheses about a
"single, unified real world"; and the test of success in science is only
"what brings us further" in this constructive process. To reduce the
work of science to the simplest connection of the appearances, as Mach had
done, would mean "to begin doing physics all over again from the beginning."1^
By pointing to the regulative role of hypotheses, Stumpf had adapted
a form of critical realism, taking a step beyond Machs extreme Humean
position on the physical world without positing a mirror-like relationship
between nature and mind in the manner of rationalism. But where does the
hypothesis of a "single, unified real world" come from? It, too, is rooted
in the immediately given, "for it is this from which we obtain the concept
of reality at all, in order to apply it later to other t h i n g s . S u c h
an assertion was possible for Stumpf only because his concept of the
"appearances" contained far more than Humes "impressions" and their copies:
in addition to simple sensations of color or tone, he listed impressions of
114 Stumpf, "Einteilung", esp. pp. 5, 10-12. Machs views and the opposition
to them will be discussed more fully in part two.
115 Stumpf, "Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen", Abhandl. der konigl.

Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Cl., 1906, p. 10.
- 51 -
spatial and temporal extension and distribution, along with memory
images. More important still was that the relations among these appear
ances, such as similarity, fusion or gradation, "are given in and with"
them. The laws of these relations are neither causal nor functional but
"immanent structural laws". Their discovery thus belongs to phenomeno
logy; "we have only to describe and recognize them". Clearly, the actual
focus of Stumpf's realism was psychology.*^
The step beyond Hume to the reality of relations had already been
taken by Edmund Husserl in his Logical Investigations (1900), which he
dedicated to Stumpf, and by William James. Brentano, too, took this
step in his later w r i t i n g s . S o m e w h a t more original in Stumpf*s con
ception of psychology was his expansion of the given to include "psy
chical functions", the noticing, grasping and judging of appearances and
their relations, the construction of concepts, and the movements of the
emotions, desire and will. Although these, too, are not inferred but
immediately given, they are at least conceptually independent of the
appearances. Intensity, for example, cannot be predicated of an emotion

118
and of a color sensation m the same way. Stumpf acknowledged that
functions like attention could sometimes change the structure of the
appearances, but he thought that this was not a frequent occurence: "the
structural laws of the appearances are more likely to be attributable

119
to physiological causes."
116 Stumpf, "Einteilung", pp. 26 ff., esp. 28, 29-30.
117 See Antos Rancurello, A Study of Franz Brentano (New York,1968),

esp. p. 58. The views of Husserl and James will be discussed in part two.
118 Stumpf, "Erscheinungen", pp. 2 ff., 5-7.
119 Stumpf, "Einteilung", pp. 30-31.
- 52 -
Stumpf believed that the relationships involved here are too complicat
ed and our knowledge of them too uncertain to set up a functionalist psy
chology to replace that of sensationalism; but he felt certain that in the
end the relations between functions and sensations would be analogous to
the one he proposed for mind and body in 1896. Mind is "a whole of func
tions and dispositions", and body "a whole of physical processes, charac
teristics, forces, dispositions"; but the relations of these two "complexes"
to one another is completely free. The psychology of sensation may indeed
be strictly deterministic, but that of functions need not be indeterministic
on that account. We must recognize only that the laws of consciousness are
not necessarily expressed only in mathematical connections, but could be

120
of various kinds, some perhaps not even quantitative.
Much could be said in criticism of this schema. Among the many am
biguities was Stumpf's use of the term "appearances" in two different
senses, for sensations and their relations as opposed to psychical functions
on the one hand and for all of the immediately given as opposed to infe
rences from it on the other. The same apparently held for Stumpf's con
cept of reality: for physics it is a hypothesis based upon the given;
for psychology it is immanent in the given. These are combinable in
principle, but we are not told in detail how to proceed from one level
to the next, how the reality of the psychical functions, e.g., is "applied
to other things". Such phrases imply the possibility of a psychology of
science, and Stumpf refers to "intellectual functions", such as the opera
tions of logic and mathematics, which could provide the material for such an
120 Stumpf, "Erscheinungen", pp. 8-9. Cf. "Leib und Seele" (1896), in
Philosophische Reden und Vortrage (Leipzig, 1910).
- 53 -
analysis. He did not, however, actually carry it out. As it was, Stumpf
seemed to have saved the reality of the psychical, but only by implicit
ly denying it the same kind of lawful character as obtains in natural
science.
Also problematic was the status of the psychical functions themselves.
Stumpf was familiar with the functionalist psychology which was coming
to the fore in the United States at that time, and an explicit emphasis
121
upon the active aspects of consciousness was common to both views.
But the other defining feature of American functionalism, the adaptation
of the active organism to the biological and social environment, received
little emphasis in Stumpf's scheme. In America, functionalism represent
ed an important step toward the conceptual differentiation of psychology
from philosophy and its simultaneous redefinition as a socially useful

122
science, particularly in the schools. Precisely this aspect was absent
from Stumpf's conception. Although he enriched the inventory of conscious
ness, the purpose of that enrichment remained the same as it was for Bren-
tano - the development of an empirically based, phenomenologically accurate
philosophy of mind.
Despite its limitations, Stumpf's realism and the richness of his con
ception of consciousness could certainly have been attractive to students
looking for empirical answers to philosophical questions. Particularly the
121 Stumpf, "Erscheinungen", p. 8. Cf. James Rowland Angell, "The Pro

vince of Functional Psychology", Psychological Review, 14 (1907),
61-91.
122 For an extensive account of the role of functionalism in the develop

ment of psychology as a discipline in America, see John M. O'Donnell,
"The Origins of Behaviorism: American Psychology 1870-1920", Ph.D.
Diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1979, University Microfilms order
no. 7928159.
- 54 -
idea that psychical functions were observable at all, and the admission
that their laws remained to be discovered, would have been a challenge
to the young and eager, especially since the functions represented prac
tically everything that people normally thought of as psychology. Stumpfs
introductory lecture awakened such hopes at both levels. The course was
indispensable for students at the Berlin institute, because Stumpf, like
his colleague G.E. Miller, never published his views in a systematic text.
In it he defined psychology as "the science of the elementary psychic
functions, and began with the assertion that "psychology is engaged in the
observation of daily life, in order to raise such observation to a science

123
through methodical treatment."
After this hopeful beginning, however, Stumpf went on to present not
a fully developed science of psychical functions, but a highly technical
survey of issues, literature and results in a variety of psychological
specialties, including predictably detailed accounts of visual and aural
sensation, space perception, and problems of psychophysics. The two parts
of the course, "Individual Psychology and Psychophysics", treating factual
issues, and "General Psychology and Psychophysics", dealing with universal
principles, contained seventeen and three chapters, respectively. The only
philosophically significant ideas offered in the second part were a reaffir
mation of the unity of consciousness, with reference to James instead of
Brentano, and the assertion that in the question of free will and determinism
123 Herbert S. Langfeld, "Stumpf's Introduction to Psychology'", American

Journal of Psychology, 50 (1937), 33-56, esp. p. 33. This is a de
tailed summary of Langfeld's lecture notes for the course, which he
heard in the winter semester of 1906-1907, together with Kurt Koffka.
Langfeld states that he also relied heavily of Koffka's notes; unfortu
nately, however, these are not included among Koffka's papers.
- 55 -
an empirical psychologist must take the determinist position. Despite
his conception of psychology as a necessary propadeutic to philosophy,
Stumpf had apparently allowed his conscientious dedication to "the method
of natural science" to take him further and further away from his original,
philosophical goals. Though his presentation of the factual material was
clear, the absence of any genuine system was undeniable - even the three-
level classification of appearances, relations and functions was not
carried through consistently - and Stumpf made no effort to reduce the
complexity of the material in consideration of the inexpert status of most
of his audience.
Although Stumpf's emphasis on facts over theory might have been
exciting to the initiated, the uninitiated or even the initiated listener
might well have been forgiven for wondering whether all of the results
Stumpf presented really were advances toward the stimulating goals he had
set at the start. Some beginning philosophy students, not only Americans
in search of an easily acquired doctorate but Germans looking for an in
tellectually and emotionally exciting philosophical world-view, were
actively repelled. One such student gave this account of his first, and
last, visit to Stumpf's lecture:
The professor was a man about whom people told me that he was 'a
world authority. I entered his lecture hall and left it just as
quickly; for a larger-than-life-sized picture of an ear labyrinth
hung on the blackboard. Obviously I had wandered into a medical
course. I finally discovered that the psychology of Professor
Carl Stumpf was not at all what I understood under that name... we
sang:
Philosophy here doesn't count for much,
With Stumpf and Riehl they give it the crunch.
(Die Philosophie gilt hier nicht viel,
Man xottet sie aus ait Stumpf und Riehl.)
124 Langfeld, "Stumpf's Introduction", p. 55.
- 56 -
In short, my emotional brooding, which I summarized in the world

philosophy, was nowhere to be found among the sellers of immense
ly long bibliographies and learned details which overwhelmed me. 125
Not only such students had their doubts. Kurt Koffka later recounted
this episode from his student days:
A colleague of mine with whom I was going home asked me the question:
Have you any idea where the psychology we are learning is leading
us? I had no answer to that question, and my colleague, after taking
his doctors degree, gave up psychology as a profession and is today
a well-known author. But I was less honest and less capable, and so
I stuck to my job. But ... his question never ceased to trouble
me....126
The identity of the colleague is not clear from this passage, but it was
probably Robert Musil, who completed his degree in the same year as Koffka,
1908. Originally trained as an engineer but already a published writer by
1904, Musil turned to philosophy and experimental psychology in 1905 in the
hope of resolving his inner conflict between intellect and feeling, science
and art. He worked for a year in Stumpfs institute and designed an in
strument called the "variation circle" for the controlled presentation of
color stimuli in 1906, the year he published his first novel, Young Tor-
less. He soon stopped coming regularly to the laboratory, however, and
wrote his dissertation on a theoretical topic, Ernst Mach's philosophy of
science. Though the thesis did not completely satisfy Stumpf, he was
offered an assistantship at Alexius Meinong's psychological institute in
Graz, but refused it, as he said, because "my love of artistic literature
125 Ludwig Marcuse, Mein zwanzigstes Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, 1968),

p. 21. Alois Riehl was a Neo-Kantian philosopher on the faculty.
His and Stumpfs names lent themselves quite nicely to a pun on the
German expression "mit Stumpf und Stiel ausrotten" - to destroy root
and branch.
126 Kurt Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York, 1935), p. 53.
- 57 -
127
is no less than my love of science." He continued to respect experimen
tal psychology, but found its results insufficient for his purposes.
"Just as the artist portrays not atoms, but bodies surrounded with air",
he wrote in his journal,
so he [the writer] presents thoughts which lie on the surface,

and not psychical elements.
But what fame awaits the writer who penetrates the depths!
And precisely there is where I seek the extraordinary! And intro
spection is obviously such an unsatisfactory tool! It is sense
less to invest one's ambitions here!128
Those who persisted, like Koffka, were introduced to the working life
of the institute in its theoretical seminars and practical exercises.
These were not survey courses like those offered at American universities
then and now, but intensive introductions to selected issues, with empasis
on the methods of their investigation. Students were expected to obtain
more general orientation from Stumpf's lecture and from the literature re
commended in it. In line with Stumpf's consistent practice, the seminars
treated a wide variety of topics, from "The Influence of Tragedy" (summer
1900) and other issues in aesthetics to "Legal Psychology" (1903 and 1904)
and "The Mind-Body Problem and the Law of the Conservation of Energy"
(summer 1908). The enrolment varied from thirty to fifty-five students
in the years 1900-1914 - roughly one-eighth to one-fifth of the attendance
127 Musil to Meinong, 18 January 1909, quotedin David Lindenfeld, The

Transformation of Positivism: Alexius Meinong and European Thought
1880-1920 (Berkeley, Cliaf., 1980)J pp. 56-57. Musil's dissertation
is entitled Beitrag zur Beurteilung der Lehren Machs, Phil. Diss.
Berlin, 1908.
128 Quoted in Wilfried Berghahn, Robert Musil (Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1963),

pp. 51-52. For an excellent account of Musil*s encounter with acade
mic psychology, see David S. Luft, Robert Musil and the Crisis of
European Culture, 1880-1942 (Berkeley, Calif., 1980), 76 ff.
- 58 -
129
at Stumpf's lectures.
However, it was in the experimental exercises for beginners, intro
duced in 1902, that students learned concretely what Stumpf meant by ex
perimental phenomenology. These were conducted by the institute's assistant
- by Friedrich Schumann until 1905, followed by von Hombostel and Narziss
Ach for one semester each, then by Hans Rupp from 1907 on. Exemplary
problems of psychophysics, memory or space perception were employed here
to demonstrate experimental techniques and the use of instruments. Assist
ants and students drew upon the institute's extensive instrument collection,
which was, of course, especially strong in acoustics, including an excel
lent set of tuning forks donated in 1903 by the director of the Berlin con
servatory, the violinist Joseph Joachim, a "pipe organ" of glass tubes
designed by Stumpf and a "tone variator" invented by William Stem for the
electronically regulated presentation of ascending and descending tonal
series. This was supplemented by equipment for visual studies, such as
the "tachistoscope" - which looked like a bicycle wheel with slits - design
ed by Schumann for the brief exposure of visual stimuli (e.g., groups of
letters) at controlled intervals. As more and more students showed inter
est in doing experimental work, Stumpf expanded the instrument collection

130
accordingly, incurring budget overruns in the process.
129 The information in this and the following paragraph is selected and
summarized from Chronik der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu Berlin,
14 (1900) - 28 (1914).
130 For descriptions of the instruments, see, e.g., William Stem, "Der
Tonvariator", Zeitschrift fur Psvchologie, 30 (1903), 422-32; Fried
rich Schumann, Die Erkennung von Buchstaben und Worten bei Momenta-
ner Beleuchtung, in Fr. Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 1. Kongress
fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1904 (Leipzig, 1904), 34-40. The
donation from Joachim and Stumpf's instrument purchases are recorded
in Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X No. 150,
3nd. 1, Bl. 225-28, 309; Bnd. 2, B1.110 ff.
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Furth er reproduction prohibited without permission.
- 59 -
Obviously Stumpf was not opposed to the use of precision apparatus,
but he did not believe that this could replace experience in introspection,
or "self-observation", as he called it. In 1890 and 1891 he had engaged
in a bitter polemic with Wundt about work done by one of Wundt's students
on an acoustical problem, arguing that if laboratory results contradicted
facts known to trained musicians, there was something wrong with the expe
riment. As he put it later, experimentation with the aid of instruments
could be
useful and necessary ... in order to fix the conditions under

which self-observation occurs as exactly and objectively as
possible, and to vary the subjective experiences which are to
be observed systematically in various directions. But ... every
where only as an introduction and aid to subjective self-obser
vation, which remains decisive as before, and as external sti
mulus for the subjective experience, which remains its object.
His assistant Schumann called self-observation not a science, but "an art,
which can be acquired only by conscientious practice." 131
Although the experimental dissertations produced in Berlin contain
tables of measurements, it was evidently not the aim of the work to pro
duce them. The largest amount of space by far is devoted to verbal reports
of what subjects have just experienced under given conditions. The use
of such material presupposed the accuracy of short-term introspection
which Stumpf, following Mill, called "primary memory". On this basis the
experimenter could be not only a subject for others, but his own subject
132
as well, as Stumpf continually demonstrated in his acoustical research.
131 Stumpf, "Einleitung", p. 25; Schumann, "Erkennung", p. 34. For a

summary of Stumpf's polemic with Wundt, see Boring, History, p. 365.
132 Langfeld, "Stumpf's 'Introduction'", p. 35. The statement about the

relative weight of measurements and verbal reports is based upon an
examination of all of the experimental dissertations produced in
the Berlin institute between 1900 and 1915. Samples of introspective
reports will be quoted in part three.
- 60 -
Despite these differences, there were also important similarities
in the socialization of scientists in Leipzig and Berlin. For both Wundt
and Stumpf, the important thing was not the number of observing subjects
but the number and variety of observations; and the purpose of the experi
ment was not to predict or control the behavior of naive subjects, or to
determine the individual differences in their responses, but to precisely
characterize the phenomena under discussion. The all important goal of
scientific training in both of Germanys most prestigious institutes was
thus the development of suitable experimentor-subjects, people who could
accurately observe and report their own experiences.
Given this aim, it is perhaps understandable that one of Stumpf's stu
dents later characterized him as "fatherly, friendly, but rather critical"
in his judgment of his students' work, and that only very few of those
who enrolled in the Berlin institute's seminars actually got so far as

133
the dissertation. Between 1900 and 1915 four theoretical and ten expe
rimental dissertations on psychological topics were completed under Stumpf's

1 O/
direction; the total for Leipzig in the same period was fifty-nine.
Once they had come this far, however, as Kurt Lewin later recalled:
Stumpf gave his students an unusual amount of freedom. For example,

I selected my topic for a thesis and it was presented to Stumpf by
the assistant, while I waited in another room. The assistant came
133 Kurt Lewin, "Carl Stumpf", Psychological Review, 44 (1937),

p. 189.
134 This statement is based on a count made by the author, drawing upon
the Verzeichnis der an den deutschen Universitaten erschienenen
Schriften (Berlin, 1900-1915). For the Leipzig figure, see Tinker,
"Wundt'sDoctorate Students".
- 61 -
out to tell me that the topic was accepted and during the next
three or four years I spent on this work, I do not remember
having ever discussed the matter with Stumpf previous to my
final presentation.135
For those who persevered, then, the Berlin institute could become
a very select social.institution indeed. The implication was that the
few who had thus demonstrated their persistence and their skill would
receive Stumpf's support in their subsequent scientific careers. Stumpf
said that his negative attitude to the production of Ph.D.'s in experi
mental psychology was related to the exacting demands of experimental re
search. He was clearly not interested in forming a school dedicated only
to his approach to psychology, nor even in dominating a single area of
research by assigning pieces of it to doctoral candidates to be worked up,
as he could well have done for audition. Instead, he pursued his research
interests largely alone, and recruited others to help him with his other
activities, such as the phonogram-archive. Still, at least two guiding
principles were there for his students to follow: primary allegiance to
the "immediately given", with measurement used only to specify the given
more precisely; and opposition to the Neo-Kantian critique of knowledge,
with the firm intention of establishing a realist world-view on the basis
of empirical research.
These were also the aspects of Stumpf's teaching which Max Wertheimer
chose to emphasize in a tribute delivered in honor of the master's seven
tieth birthday in April, 1918. It is revealing enough of both men to de
serve quoting at length.
135 Lewin, "Carl Stumpf", p. 193.
- 62 -
... for a long time now the center from which mind (Geist) streams
forth has been science; and not the general words that are taught,
not what someone preaches is essential here, but how one goes to work,
how, in what spirit the scientist works, in grasping particular
problems as well, has influence in all directions. We, too, have
been led into the garden from which this (spirit) streams forth in
the midst of the living; and it is not a matter of indifference in
what spirit apprentices are initiated. The style is passed on.
We cannot say that the general situation in this respect is good.

There are researchers who attack nature as though it were an enemy,
set traps for her, take the offensive, try to bring her down like an
opponent, like cool technicians or sportspeople who want to feel
their own strength, achieve successes. Others are like travellers
who write amusing feuilletons; others have their card boxes, write
thick books in which everything swims confusedly together; still
others work busily on a certain small piece, have real C.N.V.F.
(concentric narrowing of the visual field exists in fields other
than the optical), are blind to the right and to the left.
How different you are! For you the facts are not objects of attack,
nothing that should bring flashing results. For you the facts are
as though they were in a father's hands. In Africa there is a custom
in one tribe: when one wishes to show trust to a guest, the mother
lays her nursling in his arms and says, hold the child. So do you
hold the facts in your hands, and so have you taught us: devotion
to the real ...
And second: so round, so clean, so complete in itself is everything

for you - nothing of C.N.V.F.! We always feel: this is not just any
individual fact, but everywhere principles are at work. Here is no
splitting up of any large-curved (grosscurviger) results, but rather
always building stones, that is, always work with the most important
issues of specialized science in view ...
And third: in yet another sense there is no C.N.V.F. for you. As

much as you love and support work in specialized science, ycv, have
nonetheless taught us to keep our gaze directed to larger questions
of principle, to work toward the fruitful cooperation of psychology
and the theory of knowledge, with the highest problems of philosophy
in view. None of us wishes to be locked up in the workroom of
specialized science ... 0 5
136 Quoted from "Feier zu Carl Stumpfs 70. Geburtstag, 21. April 1918",
typescript in Max Wertheimer papers, Manuscripts and Archives Di
vision, New York Public Library, Box 1. Emphasis in the original
in all cases except the last.
- 63 -
6. Problems of Location and Legitimation; The Philosophers* Protest
The constellation of institutional and conceptual realities just
described was unique in some respects, but certainly not in its general
lineaments. The young scientists who emerged from this and similar so
cialization processes were experimenting psychologists who genuinely de
served the name, since the largest portion of their training consisted of
laboratory work. They may have taken up this specialty, as David Katz
said he had, in hopes of discovering empirical solutions to weighty issues

137
like the mind-body problem. But their enormous investment of time
and energy in the acquisition of experimental techniques resulted in a
subtle shift in their attitudes toward the parent discipline. Some of
their teachers, especially figures like Stumpf and G.E. Miller, had al
ready become caught in the spider's web of methodological precision; for
them, however, a philosophical world-view was still at least a distant
hope. For many members of the new generation, philosophical reflection
was at best a source of theories to be tested by experiment, if it' had
any use at all.
The following incident reveals how dogmatic such views had become by
1910. At the congress of the "Society for Experimental Psychology" in
Innsbruck in that year - where Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka made their
first public appearances and Max Wertheimer was present as a spectator -
the phenomenologically oriented philosopher Moritz Geiger read a major
paper entitled "On the Essence and Meaning of Empathy". In the discussion
which followed, Lilien J. Martin, a student of G.E. Miller, dismissed the
137 David Katz, "Autobiography" (cited above, n. 34), p. 192.
- 64 -
paper with these remarks:
When I came here, I expected to hear something about experiments

in the field of empathy. But what have I actually heard? Nothing
but old, very old theories. Not a word about experiments in this
field. This is not a philosophical society. It seems to me it
is high time for anyone who wants to introduce such theories here
to show whether they have been confirmed by experiments.*
Karl Marbe, who had just become director of the Wurzburg institute, saw
the significance of the theory of empathy in the impulse it gives

to experimental investigations, such as have, in fact, already
been conducted in the field. The method employed by the propo
nents of empathy theory is in many ways related to the method of
experimental psychology the way the method of the pre-Socratics is
to that of modern natural s c i e n c e . * 39
Neither the intellectual challenge of such radically scientistic
attitudes nor the more concrete threat posed by the increasing numbers
and productivity of the experimenting psychologists was accepted without
comment by philosophers. Wilhelm Dilthey's 1894 essay, already referred
to above, should be seen as part of this trend, although the threat had
not yet taken on such concrete proportions at that time. Dilthey was
willing to accept experimentation as one method of psychological research
among many, but Heinrich Rickert was rather less tolerant. For him, the
goals of psychology and natural science were the same: "to subsume spe
cial and individual processes under general concepts and, where possible,
to seek (generalizing) laws. From a logical and formal point of view,
the laws of psychical life must also be natural laws. Logically viewed,
138 Moritz Geiger, "tiber das Wesen und Bedeutung der Einfuhlung", in
Fr. Schumann, ed., Bericht tiber den .4. Kongress der Gesellschaft
fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1910 (Leipzig, 1911), 29-73.
Martin s remark is on p. 66.
139 In Geiger, "Einfuhlung", p. 66.
- 65 -
140
psychology is therefore a natural science." The concrete implication,
was clear enough: neither history, which dealt with "special and indi
vidual" events, nor philosophy, which sought normative principles and
not empirical laws, had any use for experimental psychology.
By the time of the incident at the 1910 congress, the tone had
become considerably uglier. In a portrayal of nineteeni_ i-century German
philosophy, Wilhelm Windelband asserted that in the last decades of that
century.
instead of philosophy, one had two surrogates: the history of phi

losophy and psychology. In the case of the latter the state of
things became all the narrower and more one-sided, the more the
experimental aspect took the upper hand and claimed to be every
thing. For .a time in Germany it was almost so, that one had al
ready proven himself capable of ascending a philosophical pulpit
(Katheder) when he had learned to type methodically on electrical
buttons and could show statistically in long experimental series
carefully ordered in tables that something occurs to some people
more slowly than it does to others. That was a nonetoo satisfying
page in the history of German p h i l o s o p h y . 1^
Windelband thought that this "temporary dominance of psychologism" had
already given way to a renewed Hegelianism better equipped to provide truly
philosophical answers to "the great problems of life, the political, reli-

142
gious and social questions." In view of the statistics cited above (p. 29),
showing that more and more experimenting psychologists were obtaining chairs
of philosophy, this was certainly wishful thinking. Nonetheless, the psy-
140 Heinrich Rickert, Rulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (1898),

2nd rev. & enl. ed. (Tubingen, 1910), p. 52.
141 Wilhelm Windelband, Die Philosophie im deutschen Geistesleben des

XIX. Jahrhunderts. Fiinf Vorlesungen (Tubingen, 1909), p. 92.
142 Windelband, Die Philosophie, pp. 93-93. See also "Die Emeuerung des
Hegelianismus' (1910), in Praludien. Aufsatze und Reden zur Einfuh
rung in die Philosophie, 7th-8th ed. (Tubingen, 1921), vol. 1, 273-89.
- 66 -
choiogists had a right to be insulted.
Historians have long viewed the attitudes reflected in such comments
as reflections of growing resistance to the rapid industrialization and
urbanization of German society on the part of older, established groups,
especially the educated middle classes. In the academic arena, this re
sistance was expressed most vividly in the long, ultimately unsuccessful
struggle of university professors against the granting of equal status to

143
the engineering and technical fields. Philosophers who were so disposed
apparently found experimental psychology, this intruder in their midst, to
be an eminently suitable object on which to release such resentments.
However, the issue was not strictly one of institutionalized theory
on the one hand and institutionalized practice on the other; for the pro
blem was just as acute within the philosophical faculty itself. We have
already seen that the leading sectors of German industrialization, chemi
cals and electricity, were precisely those in which scientifically trained
manpower was at a premium, and that disciplines such as chemistry, experi
mental physics and physical chemistry had received enormous intellectual
and institutional impetus from this fact. The rise of experimental research
and training in such fields could, in principle, be accommodated, so long
as the continued primacy of theoretical principles over practical applica
tions was at least proclaimed, if not left undisturbed.
In philosophy itself the situation was rather more complicated.
As the dispute between Wilhelm Wundt and Ernst Meumann over the content
143 See Karl-Heinz Manegold, Universitat, Technische Hochschule und Indu

strie. Ein Beitrag zur Emanzipation der Technik im 19. Jahrhundert un-
ter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Bestrebungen Felix Kleins (Ber
lin, 1970).
- 67 -
of the Archiv: fur die gesamte Psychologie showed, the experimentalists
themselves were divided on the issue of theory and practice. Some younger
researchers attempted to solve the problem by doing everything themselves.
William Stern, for example, the creator of the term "intelligence quotient",
helped to found Germanys first journal and laboratory for applied psy
chology in 1908; at the same time he began to develop his scientific con-
144
c e m with individual differences intoa"personalist" philosophy. For
many philosophers, however, neither this level of effort nor the conscious
self-limitation of figures like Wundt and Stumpf to pure science was suffi
cient. They attacked not one or another approach to or use of experimental
psychology, but the experiment itself.
This was most evident in Edmund Husserl's frontal assault on experi
mental psychology in his essay of 1911, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science".
The "experimental fanatics", as he called them, confused their "cult of
the facts" with a genuine analysis of consciousness itself. The essential
qualities of consciousness, for example its intentional or directed character
as "consciousness of" something, are "in principle different from the
realities of nature"; they must therefore be studied with different methods
144 See Stem's autobiography, trans. in Carl Murchison, ed., A History

of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 1 (Worcester, Mass., 1930), 335-88.
The beginnings of his philosophical system are in Person und Sache
(Leipzig, 1906).
145 Edmund Husserl, "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft", Logos, 1

(1910-11), 289-341; "Ehilosophy as Rigorous Science", trans. Quentin
Lauer, in Edmund Husserl: Phenomenology and the Crisis of Psychology
(New York, 1965), 71-147. Quotations are taken from the translation,
but have been checked against the original and in some cases altered
slightly.
- 68 -
and described in different terms from those of the natural sciences, he

. 146
argued.
According to Husserl, "essential" or phenomenological analysis of
consciousness cannot begin by asking how often experimental subjects make,
e.g., a judgment of identity, that object _a is "the same as" object under
a given set of conditions. Such questions can be answered with the methods
of experimental psychology, he granted; but no such study can tell us any
thing about the act of judgment as such, or about the way in which it
occurs. Husserl concluded that
A really adequate empirical science of the psychical in its re

lations to nature can be realized only when psychology is con
structed on the basis of a systematic phenomenology ... carried
on in a completely free spirit blinded by no naturalistic preju
dices... Only then will the gigantic experimental work of our
times, the plenitude of empirical facts and in some cases very
interesting laws that have been gathered, bear their rightful
fruit... Then we will again be able to admit that psychology
stands in close, even the closest relation to philosophy - which
we can in no way admit with regard to present-day psychology.1^
Perhaps Carl Stumpf could have agreed with much of this argument,
had it been put somewhat more moderately. He, too, sought "a really ade
quate empirical science of the psychical in its relations to nature"; and
though he rejected neither the use of apparatus nor the aid of physiology,
"systematic phenomenology" was a perfectly accurate name for the methods
taught in his institute. In fact, Husserl named Stumpf and Theodor Lipps
148
as exceptions to the trend he criticized. His philosophy, however, had
taken a different turn since he dedicated his Logical Investigations to
146 Husserl, "Philosophie", p. 319; Lauer, Husserl, p. 118.
147 Husserl, "Philosophie", pp. 320-21; Lauer, Husserl, pp. 119-20.
148 Husserl, "Philosophie", pp. 305-06; Lauer, Husserl, pp. 95-96.
- 69 -
Stumpf ten years before. By 1913 be would present the phenomenology of
consciousness as only a first step, to be followed by a "transcendental
phenomenology" of the objects revealed by bracketing out psychological
reality altogether. It was in this realm behind or beyond the real that
Husserl sought to locate "philosophy as strict science", and his polemic
of 1911 was intended in part to clear the .ground for this recasting of
149
phenomenology.
Most important in this context, however, is that Husserl also pointed
to the academic-political issues involved. After attacking "that sort of
specious philosophical literature which flowers so luxuriantly today",
offering "theories of knowledge, logical theories, ethics, philosophies
of nature, pedagogies, all based on the natural sciences, above all upon
experimental psychology," he added this remark in a footnote:
This literature receives support not least because the opinion

that psychology - and exact* psychology, of course - is the
foundation of scientific philosophy has become a firm axiom,
at least among the natural scientists in the philosophical fa
culties. These faculties, giving in to the pressure of the na
tural scientists, are very zealously giving one chair of philo
sophy after another to scholars who in their own fields are per
haps outstanding but who have no more inner sympathy for philo
sophy than chemists or p h y s i c i s t s . 1 50
Clearly, the institutional situation of experimental psychology in
German-speaking universities was no longer satisfactory by 1911, if it had
149 For discussions of the shift in Husserls views and the role of
psychology in it, see Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological
Movement (The Hague, 1960), vol. 1, esp. pp. 150 ff., and Joseph
J. Kockelmans, "Husserls Original View on Phenomenological Psy
chology", in Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed., Phenomenology (Garden
City, N.Y., 1967), 418-49, esp. pp. 421 ff.
150 Husserl, "Philosophie", p. 321, n. 1; Lauer, Husserl, p. 120, n. "g".
- 70 -
been before then. The original strategy of advancement within the given
structure had achieved important results; but its limits, or at least the
limits of the philosophers' willingness to tolerate this state of affairs,
had been reached. Apparently the experimenting psychologists had become
aware of this, as well. During the opening ceremonies of the fifth con
gress of the Gesellschaft fur experimentelle Psychologie in Berlin in 1912,
several speakers took the opportunity to impress upon the ministerial of
ficials and other politicians present the need for more government support,
espeically new university professorships, for experimental psychology.
The Prussian minister for culture and higher education responded with
a vague reference to the small size of the society, in comparison with me
dical groups. The mayor of Berlin stated bluntly that he hoped to see
concretely applicable results from the psychologists' efforts, especially
in fields such as the examination of witnesses in court and the objective

152
determination of moral responsibility in cases of insanity. Nothing came
of this exchange, but the terms of the discussion had clearly been set.
If psychology were to get the support it wished, its most prominent repre
sentatives were going to have to show its concrete usefulness in no uncer
tain terms; and if this could not be done for experimental psychology as
a specialty within philosophy, then suggestions for an alternative location
would have to be offered.
Oswald Kiilpe proposed such a relocation the same year. Kulpe, a
151 Richard Goldschmidt, "Bericht uber den V. Kongress der Gesellschaft

fur experimentelle Psychologie", Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie,
24 (1912), 71-97, esp. p. 96.
152 Goldschmidt, "Bericht", p. 96. The membership of the Society in

1912 was 174.
- 71 -
student of both Wundt and G.E. Muller, had demonstrated that commitments to
philosophy and experimental psychology need not be mutually exclusive not
only by publishing extensively in both, but also by making the establish
ment of well-equipped laboratories a condition of all three of his pro-

153
fessorial appointments. The budget of the Wurzburg institute, which
he founded in 1896, had increased fivefold and its personnel fourfold by
the time he left for Bonn in 1909 (see table two). Even so, Kulpe re
cognized that the next generation of experimenting psychologists would
no longer have either the time or the patience to deal with the demands of
a double identity, once they had been properly initiated into the spe
cialized routine of laboratory science.
The connection of the two fields is hardly to be achieved any

longer by a conscientious researcher ... We older ones grew up
into this situation and can still cope with it, if need be.
But for the newly rising breed it is becoming practically im
possible to serve both masters, to do one thing and not let the
other lapse, if they do not wish to sink into dilettantism and
superficial busy-work (Betriebsamkei t).154
Kulpes proposed solution to this problem was clear, and on the sur
face quite practical. "For the present," he said,
the most important concern is that psychology receives a status

which assures its operation as an independent discipline. A
psychological institute with corresponding work rooms, budget
and staff must be established in every university, and for this
153 For Kulpe's biography, see Clemens Baeumker, "Oswald Kulpe", Jahr-
buch der konigl. bayr. Akad. der Wiss. (Munich, 1916), 73-107; see
also David Lindenfeld, "Oswald Kulpe and the Wurzburg School",
Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 14 (1978), 132-41.
154 Oswald Kulpe, "Psychologie und Medizin", Zeitschrift fur Pathopsycho-

logie, 1 (1912), p. 266.
- 72 -
a connection with given scientific and pedagogical requirements,

with a system of education is required. As things stand, only
a linkage with medicine, analogous to that which already exists
for physics and chemistry, for botany and zoology, can bring
about this connection. Now that psychiatry has become an obligato
ry examination subject for medical students, a preliminary educa
tion in psychology should be a matter of course for the would-be
physician. 1^5
Kulpe justified taking such a step by pointing out the need for better
empirical research in the field of psychopathology. He conceded that
psychiatrists and neurologists had already begun to develop a range of
empirical methods, especially as aids to diagnosis, but contended that
these methods left much to be desired. "It is no longer sufficient ...
to rely on vulgar experience alone and to ignore the available specialized
research in psychology," he argued. "Psychological and medical require
ments and viewpoints must be united with one another."*"* The most direct
way of insuring this was to make experimental psychology part of the pre
liminary examination for medical students.
Some reviewers recognized the validity of Kulpe*s critique of
psychiatric research, but did not discuss his proposal for institutional
157
reform. Others considered his suggestion but found it "unclear" -
where, for example, did experimental psychology end and the rest of psycho
logy begin? - and wondered where the money could be found to finance so
158
many new professorships. More positive, butstillcritical, was the
155 Klilpe, "Psychologie und Medizin", p. 190.
156 Kulpe, "Psychologie und Medizin", p. 229.
157 See, e.g., H. Schwarzsreview in Zeitschrift furPhilosophie und phi-

losophische Kritik, 149 (1913), 126-27.
158 Aloys Fischer, "Philosophie und Psychologie. Eine prinzipielle Be-

trachtung zu einer aktuellen Frage der Fortbildung der Hochschule",
Die deutsche Schule, 17 (1913), 338-47.
- 73 -
response of the physician and psychologist Willy Hellpach in the Zeit-
schrift fur Psychologie. Although he endorsed Kulpe1s reform plan in
principle, Hellpach thought that his supporting arguments were too
limited to specialized issues in psychiatry and neurology. If their re
forms were to be adopted, he asserted, physicians would have to be shown
that experimental psychology could also be of help to the practical doctor
in his role as diagnostician, therapist and provider of expert testimony.
"A lot of water will flow into the sea before psychology officially moves
159
into the medical propadeutic," he predicted.
However, Kulpes essay also found a more sympathetic reader. In a
review written for a journal with a non-specialist readership, Kurt Koffka,
who had just begun his teaching career as an instructor in Giessen, prais
ed his proposal unstintingly:
As things are, intervention is only to be expected when the autho

rities are convinced of the usefulness, yes, of the indispensabi
lity of experimental psychology ... we younger psychologists have
every cause to thank Kulpe for having pointed out this route,
not least because of his understanding and sympathy for our scien
tific difficulties.160
Wolfgang Kohler, who had just entered the teaching ranks as an instructor
in Frankfurt, also became involved in the controversy, but he avoided taking
an unambiguous position on the issue. Responding to a highly critical re-
159 Willy Hellpach, review of Kulpe, "Psychologie und Medizin" and other
articles in Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 64 (1912), 434-41, esp. p.
440. Fortunately or unfortunately, this prediction was quite correct.
Psychology did not become an official part of German medical educa
tion until the 1970s. See K. Hauss, et al., eds., Medizinische
Psychologie im Grundriss (Gottingen, 1976), forward.
160 Kurt Koffka, review of Kulpe, "Psychologie und Medizin", in Deutsche

Literaturzeitung, 33 (1912), 2272, 2274.
- 74 -
view of Kulpe*s proposal by Georg Anschutz of Leipzig, Kohler took the
author to task for merely repeating Wundt's well-known attacks on Kulpe*s
approach to psychology and offering only "petty little criticisms" be
sides. In the end, he declared, it does not matter what opinion one has
on the question of psychology and philosophy, so long as the opponent in
the dispute is treated fairly.
During the discussion of Kulpe*s proposal, the event occurred which
turned experimental psychology's location problem into a genuine crisis.
To fill the chair left vacant by the retirement of the doyen of Marburg
Neo-Kantianism, Hermann Cohen, the philosophers there recommended Ernst
Cassirer, a man of related philosophical views. The natural scientists,
however, had been pressing for years for the appointment of an experiment
ing psychologist. According to an account by Cohen's colleague and friend
Paul Natorp, state officials, faced with the difficult choice between
settling the conflict expansively by establishing a new chair for experi
mental psychology and satisfying the philosophers by naming Cassirer, a
Jew of known liberal politics, did neither. Instead they appointed the
philosophically interested experimenter Erich Jaensch, a student of G.E.

162
Muller, to the existing chair. In response to this, six of the leading
161 Georg Anschutz, "Tendenzen im psychologischen Empirismus der Gegen-

wart. Eine Erwiderung auf 0. Kulpes Ausfuhrungen 'Psychologie und
Medizin* und Uber die Bedeutung der modernen Denkpsychologie'",
Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 24 (1912). Kohler's review is
in Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 64 (1913), 441; Anschutz's reply in
vol. 66 (1913), 155-60. The controversy continues in "Zu den Be-
merkungen von G. Anschutz", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 66 (1913),
319-20; Anschutz replies again in vol. 67 (1913), 506; Kohler's
"Schlussbemerkung" follows on the same page.
162 Paul Natorp, "Das akademische Erbe Hermann Cohens. Psychologie oder
Philosophie?", Frankfurter Zeitung, 12 October 1912.
- 75 -
philosophers in Germany - Natorp, Rudolf Eucken, Edmund Husserl, Alois
Riehl, Heinrich Rickert and Wilhelm Windelband - circulated a petition
against the naming of any more experimenting psychologists to chairs
of philosophy.
The petitioners recognized "the highly gratifying advance of this dis
cipline" in recent years, but found the naming of its representatives to
professorships in philosophy "all the more disquieting ... since students
should not be deprived of the opportunity to obtain systematic direction
from their professors as well about general questions of world-view and
philosophy of life, especially in these philosophically troubled times."
The document was signed by 107 university teachers - nearly the entire
philosophical guild, excluding of course the experimenting psychologists -
and was sent not only to the philosophical faculties of the German-speak
ing universites, but also to the ministries of culture and education of
all the German states. This was an unprecedented step in the history of
163
a discipline whose members thought of themselves as being above politics.
In response to this action and to Kulpe*s proposal, Wilhelm Wundt
published his polemic, "Psychology in the Struggle for Existence", at the
beginning of 1913. Castigating the philosophers for thinking only of their
"property rights" and chastising Kulpe for putting psychologists in the
same class with Gymnasium teachers, with their perpetual complaints of being
overworked, Wundt argued for the preservation and extension of the status
quo on both intellectual and practical grounds. To separate one type of
163 For a more detailed account of the controversy and a complete transla
tion of the petition, see my article, "Wilhelm Wundt and Oswald Kiilpe
on the Institutional Status of Psychology*, in Bringmann and Tweney,
eds., Wundt-Studies, esp. pp. 407 ff.
- 76 -
psychological research from the others by excluding the experimentalists
from philosophy would be dangerous and unjustified, Wundt contended;
for psychology's subject matter, mental life, is in principle a unified
whole, only parts of which are accessible to experiment. In any case,
he reminded the psychologists, "nearly half of the entire psychological
literature is made up of books and articles which extend into the fields
164
of metaphysics or the cheory of knowledge". The institutional "liber
ation" of experimental psychology would not mean that psychologists
would no longer concern themselves with such issues, but only that they
would do so without proper philosophical training. "Then the time would
truly have arrived when psychologists had become artisans," Wundt warned,
"but not exactly artisans of the most useful sort".
Since psychology still lacked obvious practical applications and
would therefore attract few students on its own, Wundt argued, the only way
the field could justify its existence in the university system was to re
main part of the general philosophical education of Gymnasium and univer
sity teachers. As he put it:
The most essential portion of the influence of the psychologist

today is linked to the fact that in lectures and in state tea
chers and doctoral examinations he is alo a philosopher. An
isolated psychology would inevitably become a minor field (Neben-
fach).1
164 Wilhelm Wundt, "Die Psychologie im Kampf urns Dasein" (cited above,
n. 5), p. 528. A more detailed presentation of Wundt's argument
is in Ash, "Wundt and Riilpe on the Institutional Status of Psycho
logy PP* 409-13.
165 Wundt, "Die Psychologie", p. 533.
- 77 -
In any case, he added, it was highly improbable that government authori
ties would suddenly begin providing funds and facilities for an indepen
dent psychology which they had not yet given to psychology as a branch
of philosophy. It was in the interests of philosophers and psychologists
alike, he concluded, that no one be allowed to earn the right to teach
in psychology "who is a mere experimenter and not at the same time a
psychologically and philosophically educated man, filled with philosophical

* _ ,,167
interests.
The philosophers petition and Wundt's polemic sparked an intense
and at times bitter debate on the status of psychology which lasted into
1914. The rejection of "one-sided specialists" was a point on which
everyone could agree; but the battle raged on nonetheless, with ugly words
on both sides. Karl Marbe, for example, called the organizers of the
petition campaign "a clique of obscurantists", to which Moritz Geiger retort^
ed that it would perhaps be better if "students would really be offered

168
philosophy by their professors of philosophy". It seemed as though
each "party" were bent on retaining its right to philosophical chairs,
if necessary at the expense of all the others.
This, at least, was the view of the Leipzig historian Karl Lamprecht.
Defending his friend and colleague Wundt in Maximillian Harden's intel
lectual journal Die Zukunft and thus bringing the dispute to the attention
of a wider public, Lamprecht presented the issue in terms appropriate to
168 Karl Marbe, Die Aktion gegen die Psychologie. Eine Abwehr (Leipzig,
1913); Moritz Geiger, "Philosophie und Psychologie an den deut-
schen Universitaten", Siiddeutsche Monatshefte, 10:2 (1913),
p. 755.
- 78 -
a historian - as a political contest. Self-styled "pure" philosophy,
which he disparagingly called "conceptual poetry" (Begriffsdichtung)
was enjoying a revival in the universities, he noted. This in itself
was no problem, but now the "pure" philosophers were trying to reserve
more professorships for themselves by pushing the psychologists into
the natural sciences.
Here the idea of power politics is being carried over into what
could be called university politics with an openness uhkown
until now ... In a time in which the demands of material interests
have by far the upper hand, crude expressions of will and their
ruthless application have become so very customary that even
the highest intellectual interests cannot completely escape from
their influence.169
Judging by the intensity of the reaction to it, Lamprecht's reference
to "power politics" touched a raw nerve. In general, however, Lamprecht's
opponents confirmed his point without realizing it. In his reply to
Lamprecht in Die Zukunft, for example, the philosopher and social theo
rist Georg Simmel first argued, correctly enough, that the historian was
wrong to see the philosophers' petition as the work of only one school of
thought. Instead, he contended, the discipline as a whole was defending
itself against being starved out by a field which had yielded nothing of
direct significance for the conduct of philosophy "excepting perhaps Fech-
ner's law." The thoughtful youth of today, Simmel claimed, want "something
more general or, if you will, more personal" from philosophy than this.
One may call this a mere secondary product of science, or philo

sophy as science (Wissenschaft); but where it is no longer offered
to the young, they turn to other sources which promise to fulfill
their deepest needs: to mysticism or to that which they call 'life',
169 Karl Lamprecht, "Eine Gefahr fiir die Geisteswissenschaften", Die

Zukunft, 83 (1913), 16-24, here p. 18.
- 79 -
to social democracy or literature, a falsely understood Nietzsche

or a skeptically colored materialism. Let us not delude ourselves:
the German universities have given up the leadership of youth to
forces of this kind. Certainly the movement away from philosophy
in the older sense to experimental psychology is not the only
reason for this turn... but the substitution of chairs of experi
mental psychology for chairs of philosophy proper puts the seal
upon this tendency and gives it increasing support.170
The dominant motifs of the academic thought of the day are all pre
sent in this virtuoso passage, especially the fear of social democracy
and materialism and the nostalgic idea that the German universities, or
German philosophers, had once had "the leadership of youth". All that
is missing is the slogan-word Weltanschauung. Better proof could not be
had of the deeper political significance of this dispute, or of the un
derlying motives of the philosopher's campaign.
A consensus did gradually develop, however, around the distinction
between psychology's "inner" and its "outer" relationship to philosophy.
If experimenting psychologists were to be kept out of philosophical pro
fessorships, cooler heads thought, their place was nevertheless in the phi
losophical faculty, not in the medical faculty, as Kulpe had proposed.
The multiple connections of psychology not only with the humanities in ge
neral but with philosophical specialties such as logic and the theory of
knowledge or even ethics required this, it was said. Most constructive
in this direction was the position of the Munich pedagogue Aloys Fischer:
Thanks to its development in the nineteenth century, psychology

has filled all the necessary conditions for full academic recogni
tion; it is time now to establish positions for it in the philo
sophical faculty. Philosophers and psychologists should support
this demand together, instead of fighting one another.
170 Georg Simmel, "An Herra Prof. Karl Lamprecht", Die Zukunft, 83 (1913),
230-34, here p. 233.
- 80 -
Oswald Kulpe accepted this view in 1914.*^*
Yet it was not to be. Experimenters with fewer philosophical pre
tensions, like Friedrich Schumann, could seize opportunities for expe
dient solutions as they arose. When the commercial academy in Frankfurt
was refounded as a university with separate philosophical and natural-
science faculties in 1914, Schumann, who had been called to Frankfurt
from Zurich in 1909 to head the academy's psychological institute, chose
to be assigned to the natural sciences for the simple reason that "of
the Geisteswissenschaften, psychology is the most expensive; of the Na-

172
turwissenschaften, it is the cheapest." Others, like Karl Marbe, were
able to effect an administrative change in the status of an already
established institute. In 1921 he secured psychology's right to count
as a major field alongside philosophy and pedagogy in state teachers' and

173
doctoral examiniations in Wurzburg. In general, however, experimental
psychology remained limited to single chairs of philosophy in the German
universities both before and after 1914.
171 Fischer, "Philosophie und Psychologie", p. 344; Oswald Kulpe, "Phi

losophic", in Deutschland unter Kaiser Wilhelm II (Berlin, 1914),
vol. 3, p. 9.
172 Quoted by Prof. Edwin Rausch in an interview in Frankfurt am Main,

22 September 1978. Rausch states that he was told this story by
Schumann in the 1930s.
173 Karl Marbe, "Die Stellung und Behandlung der Psychologie an den
deutschen Dniversitaten", in Karl Buhler, ed., Bericht uber den
VII. Kongress der Gesellschaft fur experimentelle Psychologie...
1921 (Jena, 1922), 150 ff.
- 81 -
7. The Problem Restated
This, then, was the concrete social situation that young investigators
like Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka faced as they emerged
from their training and sought a theoretical and practical orientation for
their lives in science. The psychological laboratories which had been
established in Germany by this time and the multidisciplinary community
which gathered at the congresses of the "Society for Experimental Psycholo
gy" provided a social and institutional network within which they could
and did pursue their research interests. As far as permanent positions
were concerned, however, this network was neither very large nor parti
cularly rich in locations; and the philosophers protest indicated that
the limits to growth had been reached. After a generation of increasing
productivity and institutional advance, experimental psychology had achieved
a foothold of sorts in the German scientific establishment, but only on
condition that its practitioners could demonstrate that they were "filled
with philosophical interests."
Certainly this was not the only way things could have gone. By 1914
the relevance of scientific psychology to a wide variety of other academic
disciplines, and above all its potential practical., applications in law,
psychiatric diagnostics, education and industry had become abundantly clear.
174 See, e.g., Karl Marbe, "Die Bedeutung der Psychologie fur die iibri-
gen Wissenschaften und fur die Praxis", Fortschritte der Psychologie
und ihre Anwendungen, 1 (1913), 5-82 (also issued separately, Leip
zig, 1912); Aloys Fischer, "Der praktische Psychologe - ein neuer
Beruf", Der Kunstwart, 1913, 305-13; and August Messer, "Die Bedeu
tung der Psychologie fur Padagogik, Medizin, Jurisprudenz und National-
okonomie", Jahrbucher der Philosophic, 2 (1914), 183-217.
- 82 -
In the same period, American psychologists, blessed with a much less
restrictive university situation, traded effectively upon similar de
monstrations of technocratic potential to separate their discipline
institutionally from philosophy and to redefine its aims. When John
B. Watson proclaimed in 1912 that the purpose of psychology was "the
prediction and control of behavior", he did not cause, but rather gave
a name to this development.*^
Wilhelm Wundt indicated one of the reasons why this did not happen
in Germany in his 1913 polemic, when he pointed directly to the American
situation and warned that psychologists separated from their intellectual
roots in philosophy would become "artisans". We have seen that Carl
Stumpf's sentiments, at least in this matter, were little different from
Wundt's. Such attitudes were not limited to the older generation.
Even militant advocates of applied psychology like Karl Marbe, or other
representatives of the younger generation, like Franz Hillebrand, thought
that psychology's place was within philosophy, if only to correct
erroneous philosophical doctrines. As Hillebrand put it, experimental psy
chology could make valuable contributions to metaphysics and the theory
of knowledge: "how many useless controversies could be avoided in these
fields, if only the investigations of the essence and origin of our percep
tion of space and time ... were deemed worthy of notice by the 'pure' phi
losophers ! Instead, the fiction of their a priori character still does its
175 See O'Donnell (cited above, n. 127); cf. Danziger, "Social Origins
of Modern Psychology" (cited above, n. 44), and Hamilton Cravens,
The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Heredity
Environment Controversy (Philadelphia, 1978), chap. 2.
- 83 -
mischief today.
Precisely this was the sort of claim that the philosophers wanted
no part of. We have noted mainly the existence and the social roots of
their dissatisfaction up to now; the reasons they gave for it will be
discussed in more detail in what follows. But the most important of them
should already be clear - the gap they claimed to discern between experi
mental psychologys philosophical ambitions and its actual results, a gap
which all the "learned details" in the world seemed unable to bridge.
Apparently there had been at least some progress; otherwise philosophers
would not have been tempted to take flight into one or another form of
"transcendence", or to declare apodictically that experimental methods could
never grasp the essence of psychical reality. Even so, we have seen in the
case of Carl Stumpf's conception and teaching of psychology, philosophical
ly oriented though they undoubtedly were, that such criticism may have
been based on something more than an aversion to doing philosophy with
instruments. In the course of their work in Stumpfs institute, Koffka,
Kohler and Wertheimer directly confronted both the promise and the problems
of experimental psychology as a philosophical discipline. As Koffka's
response to Oswald Kulpes proposal shows, they were well aware that the
debate about psychologys location had concrete implications for their own
future as scientists.
Even if not all experimenting psychologists faced this issue square
ly, its significance for the legitimate status, perhaps even the survival
of their field could hardly be denied. It has often been said that in Ger
many intellectual revolutions tend to become confused with the genuine
176 Franz Hillebrand, "Die Aussperrung der Psychologen", Zeitschrift fur

Psychologie, 67 (1913), 1-21, on p. 13; cf. Marbe, "Die Bedeutung der
Psychologie", pp. 77 ff.
- 84 -
article - "revolutions in the head", Hegel called them. Here was a
situation in which at least a radical reform, if not a revolution in
psychological thinking could have important practical effects. Such
a radical change was what the Gestalt theorists, among others, tried
to bring about. In order to understand their attempt more completely,
we must therefore examine more closely the intellectual situation in
which it was rooted.
Pa r t two : T h e In t e l l e c t u a l S e t t i n g
1. The Situation
Despite the rapid expansion of the field in the generation after
1890 and the high degree of scientific enthusiasm demonstrated by that
upward trend, both the institutional and the intellectual status of
experimental psychology in Germany remained highly problematic in 1912.
Powerful voices had been raised to assert that experimental methods
were in principle incapable of dealing with the fundamental problems of
life, mind and society for which, they said, philosophy was supposed to
provide solutions. The layered dimensions of social interest involved
in these claims have already been indicated, but the significance of
the issues went beyond the range of a territorial struggle in German
academic philosophy. One contemporary writer spoke of an "idealistic
reaction against science" in European thought in general at the turn
of the century.* Intellectual historians have referred to a "revolt
against positivism" led by figures like Dilthey, Henri Bergson, Benedet-

2
to Groce and the Southwest German Neo-Kantians.
let it was at just this time that Ernst Mach, Richard Avenarius and
their followers undertook a radical revision of positivism from which
both William James in America and some of the new experimenting psycholo
gists in Europe, among many others, drew intellectual support. The pri
1 Antonio Aliotta, The Idealistic Reaction Against Science (1912), trans.

Agnes McGaskill (London, 1914).
2 H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society (New York, 1958), chap. 2.
- 85 -
- 86 -
macy of Newtonian physics, against which both the critical positivists
and the anti-positivists directed their most withering fire, was under
mined and eventually ended in this period, in part by followers of
Mach but also, albeit unwillingly, by scientists like Ludwig Boltzmann
and Max Planck. However, these thinkers refused to accept neopositivistic
interpretations of their work, preferring to present their hypotheses as
products of mathematical deduction with the status of symbolic world-
pictures. In biology and physiology, on the other hand, these were
years of triumph for mechanistic thinking. Here, too, there was important
opposition, the most prominent product of which was the neovitalism of
Hans Driesch. Last but not least, this was a time not only of resurrect
ed idealism but also of revitalized realism in philosophy, represented
most interestingly on the continent by the writings of Alexius Meinong
and by Edmund Husserls Logical Investigations. Although both men were
opposed to the thinking of Mach and Avenarius, the author of a thought
ful new study of Meinong has seen fit to include this trend, as well,
3
in the "transformation of positivism".
This multiplicity of currents and cross-currents was only part of
what Carl Schorske calls the "ubiquitous fragmentation of European high
culture at the end of the nineteenth century, "a whirl of infinite inno
vation, with each field proclaiming independence of the whole, each part
in turn falling into parts." 'Schorske warns against "the positing in
advance of an abstract categorical common denominator - what Hegel called
the Zeitgeist and Mill the characteristic of an age. Where such an in
tuitive discernment of unities once served, we must now be willing to un-
3 David Lindenfeld, The Transformation of Positivism: Alexius Meinong

and European Thought, 1880-1920 (Berkeley, 1980).
- 87 -
dertake the etpirical pursuit of pluralities as a precondition for finding

4
unitary patterns in culture.*'
Despite the note of resignation in these words, Schorske's admoni
tion is particularly salutary in this case. Because they were people
with intellectual interests as broad as their education, the young scien-
tist-philosophers who became the founders of Gestalt theory proved receptive
to all the trends just named in their search for theoretical orientation.
But the social and intellectual situation described in part one brought
these interests into sharp focus. What is science; what is mind; how
can one be brought to bear upon the other? In their attempts to answer
these questions, experimenting psychologists, particularly in Germany,
walked an intellectual tightrope between categories and methods drawn
from natural science and the problems and purposes of philosophy. The
conceptual balancing-poles they used came from various sources. In the
following pages we will attempt to examine some of them, leading up in
each case to the state of discussion circa 1910.
2. The Heritage of Sensory Physiology: Helmholtz versus Hering
Historians of psychology have treated the long-running polemic be
tween Hermann von Helmholtz, Ewald Hering and their followers as a dis
pute between "nativists" and "enpirists", a debate about the role of
inherited and acquired factors in perception.^ Though this was certainly
4 Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna (New York, 1980), pp. xix, xxii.
5 Boring, History, esp. pp. 306 ff., 353. See also Julian Hochberg,
- 88 -
part of the ground upon which they fought, theirs was in fact a con
flict about the conceptualization of sensory physiology itself. They
made concessions to one another on the former issue in the course of
the debate, but not on the latter. In both of its aspects, the contro
versy had a formative influence on the intellectual situation of ex
perimental psychology at the time of the emergence of Gestalt theory.
Helmholtz stated his scientific ideal quite succinctly in 1847:
"natural phenomena should be traced back to the movements of material
objects which possess inalterable motive forces that are dependent only
on spatial relations. This view was in turn dependent upon a conception
of "the universe as consisting of elements with inalterable qualities";,
for the only possible changes in such a system are spatial, that is,
movements.^ His theories of vision and hearing were, in essence, at
tempts to realize this Newtonian ideal in the study of the senses. Ra
dically extending his teacher Johannes Millers doctrine of specific
sense energies, Helmholtz described visual sensations, for example, as
excitations transmitted-by a multitude of nerve fibers from the cones
on the retinal surface; these are so distributed that each cone receives
stimulation from corresponding bright points in the visual field. Each
fiber proceeds "through the trunk of the optic nerve to the brain, with
out touching its neighbors, and there produces its special impression, so
that the excitation of each individual cone produces a distinct and separate
"Nativism and Empiricism", in Leo Postman, ed., Psychology in the

Making (New York, 1962), pp. 255-330.
6 Hermann Helmholtz, "The Conservation of Force: A Physical Memoir"

(1847), trans. in Russell Kahl, ed., The Selected Writings of H e r m a n n
von Helmholtz (Middleton, Ct., 1971), p. 5.
- 89 -
effect on the sense."^
The so-called Yoting-Helmholtz color theory, which specified neural
processes for the primary colors red, green and violet, was simply an
application of this view. The extension was even more radical in the
case of tone sensation. Here Helmholtz postulated a collection of nerve
fibers leading from the arches of Corti - later it was the more than
4,000 transverse fibers of the basilar membrane - each of which, in his
view, resonated best in response to a different frequency.

8 He emphasiz
ed the strictly mechanical nature of these processes, the absence of
input from other sources during their course, and the separation of the
nerve fibers from one another by comparing the whole with a network of
q
telegraph wires.
As Helmholtz acknowledged, however, these operations did not pro
duce an exactly accurate-image of the physical world, by which he meant
the world of the physicist. The order of our color sensations, for
example, does not correspond perfectly to the arrangement of the color
7 Helmholtz, "Recent Progress in the Theory of Vision" (1868), in Select

ed Writings, p. 153. cf. Treatise on Physiological Optics, trans. J.P.C.
Southall (New York, 1924-1925), vol. 2, pp. 143-46.
8 Helmholtz, Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologischer Grund-

lage fur die Theorie der Musik (1862), 4th rev. ed. (Braunschweig, 1877),
pp. 235 ff., esp. 242-44.
9 Helmholtz, "Recent Progress", in Selected Writings, p. 168. The tele

graph analogy was first enunciated in Tonempfindungen, p. 245. Por
a general treatment of Helmholtzs theory of vision, see Nicolas
Pastore, Selective History of Theories of Visual Perception, 1650 to
1950 (New York, 1971), chap. 9.
- 90 -
triangle. Sensations, then, are not true copies but "signs" of the phy
sical world, which are parallel to it in the sense that they "produce
a lawful order by a lawful order. The information provided by these
"signs" is also insufficient to account for a number of important per
ceptual facts, the most significant being that we see objects in three
dimensions, even though the pattern of excitations on the retina is two-
dimensional. It was at such points that Helmholtz invoked psychological
categories.
To deal with the problem of depth, Lotze had posited "local signs",
additional excitations which convey the location of stimulated retinal
points with respect to the point of clearest vision. Helmholtz accepted
these and added tactile sensations. Frequent association of the latter
with the former lead to "unconscious conclusions" of spatiality, which he
compared to the inductive conclusions described in John Stuart Mill's
Logic.11 This was little more than a loose analogy, however; Helmholtz
accepted neither Mill's view of causation nor the concomitant theory of
mind as a passive recipient of sensations. Instead he called his in
ductions "an unconscious and involuntary activity of the memory" and
likened the learning process involved to a form of "experimentation".
The perceptions produced by this compounding of sensations are so ir-
resistable that they are treated "as if" they were themselves sensations.
10 Helmholtz, "Recent Progress", in Selected Writings, pp. 174-75; cf.

Optics, vol. 3, p. 4.
11 Helmholtz, Optics, vol. 3, esp. p. 5; cf. p. 155. For a discussion of

Lotze's theory of local signs and the use Helmholtz and others made
of it, see William Woodward, "From Association to Gestalt: The Fate
of Hermann Lotze's Theory of Spatial Perception", Isis, 29 (1978),
p. 572-82.
- 91 -
Nonetheless, according to Helmholtz, the component sensations, in this
case the flat retinal images, are recoverable, given the appropriate
12
direction of attention and practice.
Despite his reduction of one of Kants categories of apperception
to a matter of empirical research, Helmholtz insisted that his views were
consistent with Kantian philosophy. For him, as for Kant, phenomena are
the effects of causes which we cannot directly experience; we can only
ascertain them by means of exceptionless laws derived mathematically and
confirmed by experiment, in the manner of natural science. Helmholtz
extended this type of thinking to sensation. Beyond this level, however,
his recourse to "unconscious conclusions" and judgments of sensation
evoked thoughts of a Kantian active intellect. In later years he indi
cated some affinity for the views of Fichte, calling our experiences of
the lawful regularity of phenomena "a force acting in opposition to us in
a manner analogous to the workings of our own will ... In Fichtes appro
priate terminology, the Non-Ego forces the recognition that it is distinct

13
from the Ego. Helmholtz was certainly less pessimistic about the pos
sibility of a scientific psychology than either Kant or his colleague Emil
Du Bois-Reymond, who declared psychical phenomena "outside the realm of
12 Helmholtz, Optics, vol. 3, pp. 12, 28. For further examples of

Helmholtzs view on "compounded" sensations, see Tonempfindungen,
pp. 170-76.
13 Helmholtz, "The Facts of Perception" (1878), in Selected Writings,

pp. 376, 386-87. On Helmholtz and Kant see Benno Erdmann, "Die phi-
losophischen Grundlagen von Helmholtzs Wahmehmungstheorie", Abhandl.
der Berliner Akad. der Wiss., Phil .-hist. Kl., 1921, Nr. 1, and Mau
rice Mandelbaum, History, Man and Reason (Baltimore, 1971), pp. 292 ff.
On Helmholtz and Fichte see R. Steven Turner, "Hermann Helmholtz and
the Empiricist Vision", Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 13 (1978), esp. pp. 55-
58.
- 92 -
14
causal law," that is, beyond the reach of mechanical explanation. Yet
he confirmed this idea, as it were unconsciously, by showing that a
Newtonian science of sensation was apparently possible only at the cost
of a Fichtean philosophy of mind.
Such difficulties did not hinder the rapid growth of sensory and
brain physiology based on the physicalistic methodology and assumptions
exemplified in the work of Helmholtz and others. His radicalization of
the doctrine of specific sense energies made it almost impregnable for
decades.*^ The assumption that the nerves are indifferent carriers of
excitations which play no role in the ordering of sensation meant that
the sense organs could be studied as machines, as Helmholtz did with the
eye as a camera obscura. The pattern of measurable physical stimuli could
be compared with the corresponding pattern of elementary sensations, and
searches undertaken for anatomical arrangements in the organ itself cap
able of adequately transforming the former into the latter. This was
more than sufficient as a research program for sensory physiology.^
For experimenting psychologists, the assumption of a simple corres
pondence between anatomical, physiological and psychological elements may
have had its attractions; but the notions of unconscious sensations and
inferences did not. Both G.E. Muller and Carl Stumpfr;for -example,1 cri
ticized Helmholtz's interpretation of tonal fusion. Muller insisted that
14 Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Die Grenzen des Naturerkennens (1872), 11th ed.,

(Leipzig, 1916), p. 41.
15 Edwin G. Boring, Sensation and Perception in the History of Experiment

al Psychology (New York, 1942), pp. 72-73.
16 Cf. R. Steven Turner, "Helmholtz, Sensory Physiology and the Disciplinary

Development of German Psychology", in William Woodward & Mitchell G. Ash,
eds., The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth Century Thought
(New York, 1982), pp. 147-66.
- 93 -
for all observers under normal conditions the experience of a tone is
unified and elemental and that the fusion of its harmonic components must
therefore have a physiological basis. Stumpf rejected Muller's physio
logical speculations and agreed with Helmholtz that upper partial tones
are potentially in consciousness; but he, too, insisted that psychological
laws must relate to the phenomena as experienced, not to assumed sensa-
tions. 17
In a memorial essay for Helmholtz published in 1895, Stumpf emphasiz
ed his enormous contributions to the development of sensory psychology; he
above all others had helped to build "the bridge between physiology and
psychology that thousands of workers go back and forth upon today." However,
Stumpf noted, Helmholtz's assumption of the physicist's world instead of the
experiencing subject as his point of departure had led him to relegate some
of our most impressive introspective experiences, such as contrast phenome
na, to the realm of illusion or unconscious judgment. Stumpf identified this
as the fundamental issue dividing the physiology and psychology of the senses.
It was also the point at which the physiological alternative posed by Ewald
Hering made its mark.
Hering always made it a point to present easily comprehensible de
monstrations to bring home the insufficiency of perceptual theories based
on physical assumptions alone. When we look at a piece of white cardboard
from which a zigzag piece has been cut, for example, we see either a hole in
the cardboard and a dark space behind it or a black patch in the plane of
17 G.E. Muller, Zur Theorie der sinnlichen Anfmerksamkeit (Leipzig, 1873),

pp. 23-39; Stumpf, Tonpsychologie,vol. 1, pp. 39-40; vol. 2, pp. 5, 214
and passim. Cf. Boring, Sensation and Perception, pp. 357-63.
18 Stumpf, "Hermann von Helmholtz and the New Psychology", Psychological

Review^ 2 (1895), pp. 2 , 6.
- 94 -
ig
the cardboard; yet the retinal image is the same for each impression.'
To attribute such phenomena to judgements or other psychological acts,
Hering argued, was to invoke "a deus ex machina to help eliminate all
difficulties", comparable to earlier "explanations" in terms of vital

20
forces. The point, he insisted, is not whether or not experience plays
an important role in perception, which it surely does, but to develop
a physiological explanation of the facts. As he put it in a widely-
cited lecture on "Memory as a Function of Organized Matter", "for phy
siology, unconscious and material are the same, and the physiology of the
21
unconscious is not a philosophy of the uncounscious."
The conceptual root of Herings theory, however, was not a strict
ly physiological idea, but the distinction betweeen real and "seen objects"
(Sehdinge), which he made in his earliest work, in 1861, and retained
throughout his career. The example just given shows clearly what Hering
had in mind - the dark space behind the zigzag hole in the cardboard and
the black patch on its plane are both "seen objects". For him the dis
continuity was not a question for epistemological debate, but "an indispen-
19 Ewald Hering, '*Der Raumsinn und die Bewegung des Auges", in L. Her
mann, ed., Handbuch der Physiologie (Leipzig, 1879), vol. 3:1, pp. 569-
73.
20 Hering, "Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne" (1874), in Wissenschaf tliche Abhand-

lungen (Leipzig, 1931), Sel. 37, p. 6.
21 Hering, "Uber das Gedachtnis als allgemeine Funktion der organisierten

Materie" (1870), 3rd ed. (1921), repr. in Oskar Loerke & Peter Suhr-
kamp, eds., Deutscher Geist: Ein Lesebuch aus zwei Jahrhunderten (Frank
furt a.M., 1966), vol. 2, pp. 364-84, here pp. 373-74. The reference
here was to Eduard von Hartmann's book, The Philosophy of the Uncon
scious, published the year before. Surely this was Hering's revenge
for Helmholtz's attempt to associate him with Naturphilosophie by la
belling his theory "intuitionist".
- 95 -
22
sible prerequisite for understanding the visual function and its lavs."
Because it involves a methodological more than an epistemological com
mitment, we might call this position "heuristic phenomenalism". We have
seen that Helmholtz, too, adopted a version of phenomenalism, at least part
ly, on methodological grounds; but Hering's "seen objects" are evidently
not equivalent to Helmholtz1s "signs". As Hering wrote in 1874:
If a shadow falls on a part of a white paper, we do not call

the shadowed part gray, but rather darker, although the light
which it reflects can have exactly the same intensity and compo
sition as that coming from a gray paper; and if we reflect light
onto a gray paper by means of a mirror, then we do not call
the brighter part of the paper white but only brighter, although
it perhaps reflects exactly the same light as a white paper lying
next to it. Here the difference in designation corresponds to a
difference in perception ... I did [sic] not intend to imply by
this that despite these different perceptions the 'sensation*
would still be the same in both cases, corresponding to the sti
mulus equality. I believe rather that the 'sensation' is funda
mentally different in the two cases, which is possible despite
the equal stimuli because the light sensation is not simply a
function of the stimulus and the momentary state of the first
affected neural structures, but also depends on the state of the
part of the brain related to the visual activity, in which the
optical experiences of one's whole life are contained and in
some way organized.^
Hering later admitted that he did not know what the physiological
correlates of relations like "darker" or "lighter" might be, though he
imagined that histological interconnections among the nerve elements in
both the brain the the retina would provide an adequate anatomical sub-
24
strate. Even so, it was clear that his vastly broadened concept of
22 Hering, Outlines of a Theory of the Light Sense (1905 ff.), trans.

Leo M. Hurvich and Dorothea Jameson (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), p. 1.
23 Hering, "Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne", Sec. 24, quoted in Light Sense,
pp. 223-24. Emphasis in the original.
24 Hering, Light Sense, p. 173.
- 96 -
sensory processes required a fundamentally different kind of explanatory
model from that offered by Helmholtz, one which placed more weight on
functional interaction within the organ of sense than on mechanical signal
or energy transfer.
Encouragement to develop such a model came from research Ernst
Mach conducted in the 1860s on contrast phenomena. Among these were
the gray, ring-like areas which appear between the black and white bands
of a rotating disk at certain speeds of rotation. These have since been
called "Mach bands" in his honor. Mach confirmed that they were sub
jective by photographing the disk in rotation, and showed that such phe
nomena appear whenever corresponding brightness relations exist. These
gradients, he asserted, appear in the retinal image itself, and are "of
the utmost significance for the perception of external objects." He at
tributed them to interaction among excited retinal areas, in amounts in
versely proportional to the distance of the excited retinal points from
one another; "the light on a single point is thus evaluated in terms of

25
the light on all other points."
This "schematizing" in the eye is responsible, Mach thought, not
only for the perception of contours but also for that of forms, and for
the relative constancy of color despite changes in illumination. He ad
mitted that we do not yet know the nature of the physiological process
involved in such cases, but said there was no reason why it could not be
25 Ernst Mach, "On the Effect of the Spatial Distribution of the Light
Stimulation on the Retina" (1865) and "On the Physiological Effect
of Spatially Distributed Light Stimuli" (1866), trans. in Floyd Rat
liff, Mach Bands; Quantitative Studies in Neural Networks in the
Retina (San Francisco, 1965), p. 253-71, 272-84, here pp. 283, 269.
- 97 -
discovered. Against Helmholtz he argued that even illusions must have a
physical counterpart in the brain, and proposed as "a heuristic principle
of psychophysical research" that
Every psychical event corresponds to a physical event and vice

versa. Equal psychical processes correspond to equal physical
processes, unequal to unequal ones. When a psychical process is
analysed in a purely psychological way into a number of quali
ties a, b, c, then there corresponds to them, just as great a
number of physical processes, a, g, y. To all the details of
psychical events correspond details of the physical events. 26
Kurt Koffka later acknowledged that this version of psychophysical
isomorphism "looks identical" with the one presented by Wolfgang Kohler in
1920, but he asserted that Machs philosophy prevented him from making
27
effective use of it. We will return to this point below. Important
here is that Hering accepted Machs research results, but extended and mo
dified his theory of retinal interaction in two ways. First, noting
that Mach had assumed Helmholtzs one-to-one relation between bright
points in the visual field and excited cones on the retina, he pointed
out that, because of local scattering, the light from single elements
of the visual field illuminates a complex of cones, and that single cones
are thus simultaneously irradiated by a complex of field elements. Retin
al interaction must therefore be significant for many other phenomena be
sides simultaneous brightness contrast; in fact, he asserted, it was ne-

28
cessary', if not sufficient, for the correct perception of color in general.
26 Mach, "Spatial Distribution", pp. 269-70.
27 Koffka, Principles, p. 63.
28 Hering, Light Sense, pp. 166-67, 170, 123-24.
- 98 -
To supply the remaining condition, Hering then extended the prin
ciple of mutual interaction beyond the retina to the entire "visual space"
(Sehraum), or "neural visual system", including the retina, the optic
nerve and related parts of the brain; this he called the "inner eye",in
contrast to the dioptric mechanism, which he called the "outer eye".
Borrowing a term from metabolism, he postulated four self-regulating
processes of "assimilation" and "dissimilation" in the "inner eye", one
for each of the primary colors and one for black and white. External
stimulation activates the corresponding "assimilation" process, which
reaches a given mid-point between the relative levels of stimulation
and of autonomous nervous activity, then returns in the opposite direction
(hence "dissimilation"), not to the original state, but to a state of
equilibrium between old and new. Thus a residuum or "trace" is left of
the process, which remains in the "inner eye" for activation with the
arrival of suitable stimuli from without. This, Hering thought, was the
explanation of relative color constancy - activated traces of previous
color experiences compensate for changes in illumination and thus produce
what Hering called 'memory colors." He gave this biological theory a
Lamarckian twist by asserting that not only the organic structures involv-
29
ed but the traces themselves are heritable.
With its psychological starting point, its preference for metabolic
29 The theory was first presented in "Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne", Sec.
27, and the equilibrium idea generalized in "Zur Theorie der Vor-
gange in der lebendigen Substanz" (1888). I am relying here on the
formulations in Light Sense, esp. chap. 4, para. 22-23. For "memory
colors" see pp. 6 ff. On the heritability of traces, see "fiber das
Gedachtnis", p. 371.
- 99 -
over biophysical language, and its stress on dynamic interaction and
self-Organization over point-to-point transmission, Hering offered a
genuine alternative to linear conceptualizations of sensory processes
like that of Helmholtz. In a number of important ways, however, he did
not revolutionize but retained the logical structure of the theories
he opposed. Despite his advocacy of retinal interaction, he accepted
the idea that something had to be added to compensate for the inadequacy
of the two-dimensional retinal image. He did not reject local signs,
but transferred them into the inner eye; in the same way he translated
Helmholtz's "unconscious conclusions" into "chains of unconscious nervous
processes. Furthermore, rather like Helmholtz and quite unlike Mach,
he did not see psychological and physical events as being strictly parallel
to one another. He spoke of the "organization" of optical experience in
the brain, but said little about the possibility of such organization in
the physical world. Instead, physical stimuli act as releasers for construc
tive processes of a different kind. For Hering, these were organic, or
"physiological"; for Helmholtz they were "psychological". Like all such
releaser theories, Hering's could explain the end products - the "seen ob
jects" - but could not necessarily explain why they managed to resemble
real objects much of the time. Helmholtzs theory encountered similar
difficulty in the opposite direction: it could deal with the physical sti
muli and their correlates in peripheral organs but not in every case with
"seen objects".
30 For Hering on local signs, see Nicolas Pastore, "Reevaluation of

Boring on Kantian Influence, Nineteenth Century Nativism, Gestalt
Psychology and Helmholtz", Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 10 (1974), pp.375-
90; cf. Woodward, "From Association to Gestalt", p. 578. Hering's
reference to "unconscious nervous processes" is in "iiber das Gedacht-
nis", p. 374.
- 100 -
The reception of Herings ideas in sensory physiology was similar
ly ambivalent. Because it could describe our white-gray sensations better
than the Young-Helmholtz theory, Herings four-process model was widely
adopted, or incorporated into others. Had Herings overall approach
been equally widely accepted as a research program in sensory physiology,
the effect would have been to shift attention from the dioptric mechanism
and the retina to the inner eye". In particular, scientists would have
had to turn to microscopic analyses of neural pathways and to neuroanato
my. Some physiologists did this, but most did not. Those who followed
Helmholtz were evidently not prepared to give up the technical advantages
and the conceptual connection to physics which their simplifying assumptions
offered them for the sake of Herings more difficult theoretical and prac
tical tasks.
For experimental psychology, however, the potential implications
of Hering's perspective were far-reaching. On the theoretical side, the
most important response was G.E. Muller's essay of 1896 on "The Psycho
physics of Visual Sensation." Muller condemned Helmholtz's assumption of
one-to-one connections in the retina as a "dogma", pointing to the recent
findings of Golgi and Ramon y Cajal that the rods and cones belong to a
single network of neurons, in which neighboring retinal points with dif
ferent functions often transmit to the same fiber. This and his reduction
of his teacher Lotze's local signs to strictly "physiological association"
were enough to support his assertion of an "inner relation" between his
31 This, at least, is the contention of Leo M. Hurvich, "Hering and the

Scientific Establishment", American Psychologist, 24 (1969), 497-513.
- 101 -
ideas and those of Hering.
However, Muller pointed out, Hering*s color theory violated the
fourth of five "psychophysical axioms" he had worked out in elaboration
of Machs "heuristic principle of research". This axiom stated that
every qualitative change in sensation corresponds to a qualitative change
in the material, or "psychophysical process" connected with its occurence. 33
According to Hering, we should see nothing at all when all three antagonistic
color processes are in equilibrium; instead we see a neutral gray. Muller
supposed that this is a product of constant molecular action in the cortex,
hence the name "cortical gray" by which it has since become known. Since
Hering had also referred to such autonomous activity in the brain, Muller's
alteration required no basic change in the theory. Nor did the additional
suggestion that antagonistic retinal processes were better understood
as reversible chemical reactions of the sort just then being described
by Walter Nerast than with metabolic metaphors. Since no one doubted that
chemical reactions conformed to mechanical laws, Muller could thus main
tain the fundamental conception, which he shared with Hering, that the ex
citations in the visual nerve are "processes which rest on the disturbance
of a stable state of equilibrium**, without breaking the strict continuity
32 G.E. Muller, "Zur Psychophysik der Gesichtsempfindungen", Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 10 (1896), pp. 1-82, 321-420; 14 (1897), pp. 1-76,
161-96, here vol. 14, p. 18 and vol. 10, p. 12.
33 Muller, "Psychophysik", pp. 1 ff. Muller cited Mach's essay of 1865,

along with similar statements by Fechner, Lotze and Hering. For dis
cussions of the psychophysical axioms, see Boring, Sensation and Per
ception, pp. 83-90, and the literature cited on p. 96.
- 102 -
34
between physical and psychical laid down in his axioms. He did not
say where or how "physiological associations" take place. Nonetheless,
his essay reinforced the prospect opened up by Mach in 1865 and by
others before him. With the assumption of strict parallelism between
psychical and physical, or psychophysical events, psychology would pro
vide useful information for neurophysiological hypotheses. Whether
physiologists would accept such an offer was, however, an open question.
As Hering's student and coworker Franz Hillebrand showed, it was
not necessary to wait for an answer to that question in order to do ef
fective research with "seen objects". In a paper entitled "The Sta
bility of the Spatial Values on the Retina" (1893), Hillebrand found that
objects viewed binocularly are not seen at the average midpoint of their
lines of direction, as predicted by Helmholtz. Hering had said that
objects are seen instead along the horizontal horopter, the line of
single vision. Hillebrand modified this by showing that nearer objects
are seen in a curve concave, further objects in a corresponding curve con
vex to the horopter - the so-called Hering-Hillebrand horopter deviation.
He was not slow to draw the sweeping conclusion that "the location of
seen objects is generally not in agreement with that of the corresponding

35
real objects." For psychologists, the implication was clear: these phe-
34 Muller, "Psychophysik", vol. 10, pp. 4-5, 338 ff.; vol. 14, pp. 5-6,
64 ff.
35 Franz Hillebrand, "Die Stabilitat der Raunrwerte auf der Netzhaut",

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 5 (1893), pp. 1-60, on p. 58. In 1896
Hillebrand crossed Helmholtz's bridge in the opposite direction, be
coming professor of philosophy in Innsbruck. In 1910 he hosted the
congress of the "Society for Experimental Psychology", at which Kurt
Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler gave their first public presentations.
- 103 -
nomena could be studied for themselves, and the deviations measured,
with or without physiological speculation.
Hillebrand's paper was concerned mainly with the problem of appa
rent distance. Phenomena of apparent size were already known: Wundt's
student Gotz Martius measured some of them in 1889. Hillebrand and others
extended this work and developed mathematical models to regularize the re
sults. In 1909, Walter Poppelreuter then added an additional dimen
sion, that of form (Gestalt). Apparent form, he pointed out, is only
adequate to objective form in frontal-parallel orientation. The cabinet
wall next to the door of a furnished room, for example, is objectively
just as much a rectangle as the door; but if we look directly at the door,
we perceive the cabinet wall as a rhombus. Since rhombi can be measured
as well as rectangles can, Poppelreuter argued that no special "Gestalt
quality" was needed, and proposed instead to rewrite the mathematical mo-
36
dels already developed in order to take the new factor into account.
Though he employed the term "phenomenology" for his descriptions, Poppel
reuter's work clearly had more to do with the Hering tradition than with
36 Walter Poppelreuter, "fiber die Bedeutung der scheinbaren Grosse und

Gestalt fiir die Gesichtswahmehmung", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 54
(1910), pp. 317-18, 342. Poppelreuter developed his mathematical mo
del in "Beitrage zur Raumpsychologie", Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie, 58
(1911), pp. 200-62. Poppelreuter is difficult to place academically.
He studied at the University of Berlin, but did his research in the
laboratory of the psychiatric clinic run by Theodor Ziehen, and receiv-
ved his doctorate from Narziss Ach in Konigsberg. For work on this
problem from the Berlin laboratory, see Walter Blumenfeld, "Untersuchun-
gen iiber die scheinbare GroBe im Sehraume", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie,
65 (1913), pp. 242-404. For an account of earlier research on apparent
size, see Boring, Sensation and Perception, pp. 292 ff.; cf. the supple
mentary remarks by Johannes von Kries in Helmholtz, Optics, vol. 3,
esp. pp. 390 ff.
- 104 -
Husserls philosophy. But his application of that line of thought had
its weaknesses, especially his limitation of the form problem to geo
metrical figures.
Far more significant was the work of two of G.E. Muller's stu
dents, Erich Jaensch and David Katz, in space and color perception. Using
sophisticated versions of Herings methods as starting points, they achiev
ed results which cast doubt upon the adequacy of his theoretical framework.
Because Katzs work is most indicative of this turn of events, it will
be discussed here.
In 1905, after a long absence from the arena, Hering published
the first installment of his Outlines of a Theory of the Light Sense, which
was devoted primarily to color perception. As in his earlier papers, he
began with simple but effective demonstrations of the phenomena to be dis
cussed, especially of color constancy. In one of these he showed that the
use of a reduction screen - in this case a sheet of cardboard with a view-

37
ing hole - could produce colors of "ideal uniformity." In his habilita-
tion thesis under Muller, submitted in 1911, Katz suggested that Hering
had demonstrated two fundamentally different "modes of appearance" of co
lor, and went on to extensively refine Herings descriptive terminology.
Katz distinguished first between surface colors (Oberflachenfarben),
the two-dimensional colors we normally see on the surfaces of objects,
and film colors (Flachenfarben), which have no localization or precise spa
tial characteristics, like an expanse of blue sky in the mountains on a
cloudless day. It is the surface colors which exhibit constancy. To these
37 Hering, Light Sense, pp. 12-13.
- 105 -
he added volume colors, the three-dimensional colors of transparent media

38
such as colored liquids, and also luster, luminousness and glow. Katz
acknowledged that he had been encouraged to adopt "the general phenome
nological attitude" which led to such careful distinctions by the lec
tures and seminars he had heard with Edmund Husserl, who had been teach
ing in Gottingen since 1901. He hastened to add, however, that Husserl
had not carried out analyses of color in his courses, and that the type of
description involved had already been used by Hering. 39
Katz's demonstration that the same color could appear in so many
different ways enriched psychological description considerably; but pre
cisely this enrichment posed thorny theoretical problems. The same was
true of his experimental results. In one experiment, subjects were asked
to match black-white mixtures on a color-wheel placed near a window with
a light grey paper presented in a dark corner of the room. When they
did this, it was found that the color wheel mixture, though objectively
darker than the paper in the corner, sends much more light. When a so-
called "reduction screen" with two holes was introduced between the ob
server and the two matched grays, so that one hole was filled by light
coming from the paper and the other by light coming from the disk, the hole
filled by the color wheel was considerably lighter. Though the use of the
38 David Katz, "Die Erscheinungsweisen der Farben mid ihre Beeinflussung

durch die individuelle Erfahrung", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, Ergan-
zungsband 7, 1911, pp. 7-35; cf. the English translation of the second
edition, The World of Color, trans. R.B. MacLeod & C.W. Fox (London,
1935), pp. 7 ff. For Hering*s descriptions of "luster" and volume co
lors, see Light Sense, pp. 8, 12.
39 Katz, "Erscheinungsweisen", p. 30. Katz may have added this remark

to placate Muller, whose professional relations with Husserl were under-
- 106 -
two-hole screen was Katz's innovation, this was a classic demonstration
of color constancy in Hering*s sense. Katz obtained similar results in
other matching experiments. But perfect matching proved to be impossible;
some difference, difficult to describe in words, always remained. He con
cluded that constancy is more complicated than Hering had thought. Not
only the quality, but the brightness (which Katz called the "illumination")
and the "pronouncedness" (Ausgepragtheit) of the color must be immediately

. . 40
percexved.
This finding was clearly no more compatible with Helmholtz's theory
of perception than Hering* s had been; but it was not easily reconciled
with Hering*s theory, either. The ability to deal with all those stimu
lus dimensions could not be attributed to retinal interaction alone, and
memory colors were excluded by the fact that the stimulus objects were
neutral colored papers or color wheels which might have any color. Katz
postulated "central transformations"wbich occured along with the retinal
interactions, attributing constancy to the former and contrast to the lat
ter processes. Since the reduction screen seemed to eliminate the in
fluence of these transformations, Katz regarded film colors as the most
purely "physiological". He also thought they were genetically prior to
surface colors, as the range of individual differences was smaller for them.
Though surface colors under normal illumination are the least destructable,
and are thus genetically "nearest'! to film colors, they are nonetheless
standably not of the best. For a discussion of the work of Katz and
Jaensch and its relationship to Husserl's phenomenology, see Herbert
Spiegelberg, Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (Evanston, 111.,
1972), pp. 41 ff.
40 Katz, "Erscheinungsweisen", passim.
- 107 -
products of experience - "a child perceives no illumination", he claimed.
These were the outlines of what Katz called a "psychological" theory of
color. He did not specify the psychological processes involved in detail,
but supposed they would prove to be a type of chained associations.^*
Apparently we have here the beginnings of a significant category
shift. For Helmholtz, the lines of demarcation had been clear: sensation
is a physiological process which occurs in the brain, providing the con
stant data upon which perception, a psychological process, operates.
Hering altered this by redefining sensation. Perception still operates
upon sense data, but these have been preprocessed, as it were, in the
retina and the inner eye, and thus have more about them of what Helmholtz
had thought of as perception. Much confusion and argument had been caused
by the retention of the term "sensation" for two differently conceived
processes. By involving central events from the beginning, Katz seemed
to have extended Hering's schema still further; he insisted that his
"central transformations were not unconscious conclusions, but part of
"seeing" itself. However, he retained the dichotomy of "physiological"
and "psychological" processes, while delivering evidence which showed
that the distinction was inadequate to cover the entire range of phenome
na.
By 1911, then, the nettle of Hering*s heuristic phenomenalism had
been grasped by experimenting psychologists as an entry point for systema
tic research on the workings of the psyche - with empirically exciting but
theoretically ambiguous results. The situation had also become more com
plicated in sensory physiology. Johannes von Kries, for example, admitted
41 Katz, "Erscheinungsweisen", pp. 227, 300, 374 ff.
- 108 -
that retinal processes could not be as simple as Helmholtz had assumed
them to be. His "duplicity theory" saved the Young-Helmholtz color
theory, but only by limiting its validity to the daylight vision in the
cones and attributing twilight vision to the recently discovered "vi
sual purple" in the rods. This also made Hering*s theory untenable,
since it did not account for the difference between black-white and
primary color processes. Von Kries found Muller's theory more plausible,
since it came closer to his own "zone theory", which assigned different
parts of the visual process to different sections of the visual organ.
But if this were the case, then it would be inappropriate to make de
ductions about organic processes on the basis of introspective findings.
In the present state of research, he concluded, it is "imperative" to

/o
keep psychological and physiological data "carefully apart".
Whether such a neat division of labor would actually be possible,
and whether philosophy could be kept out of it, was not at all clear.
Von Kries* discussion of the nativism-empirism issue in his supplement to
the third edition of Helmholtz's Handbook of Physiological Optics, publish
ed in 1910, indicated this well enough. He rejected Hering's approach
as "sensationalism", taking the Kantian position that "the idea of space
as such forms a unitary and invariable part of our consciousness" which
"remainsconstant throughout all changes of the thing perceived." The way
in which space is given in consciousness is thus not a matter of sen
sation, and so not a subject for physiological discussion one way or the
other. The real issue is localization; and this, thought von Kries, is
42 Johannes von Kries, "Die Gesichtsempfindungen", in Willibald Nagel, ed.,

Bandbuch der Physiologie (Braunschweig, 1904), vol. 3; 1, pp. 279, 276,
281-82.
- 109 -
unquestionably learned, though he admitted that there probably are "na
tive predispositions" for depth. In the end, he said, both parties had
right on their side; but "sensationalism" diverted attention from important

43
and fundamental distinctions.
Von Kries was more philosophically minded than most physiologists;
he was thus well equipped not to speak for them all, but to bring out
the implications of what they were doing. The complex of philosophical,
physiological and psychological issues broached in the opposition between
Hering and Helmholtz was evidently as much a part of the intellectual
scene in 1910 as it had been in 1860. Like Helmholtz, von Kries invoked
dualistic epistemology to reinforce strict boundaries between physiology
and psychology. Followers of Hering tended to take up monistic or strict
parallelist positions; yet here, too, it was perfectly possible to justify
the pursuit of psychological research without physiological speculation.
Viewed from this perspective, the relevant issue was apparently not the
differentiation of psychology per se, but the nature of its philosophical
underpinnings.
3. Conceptual Shifts in Experimental Psychology: Wundt, Mach & After
This point becomes still clearer when we examine the conceptual
foundations of the New Psychology more directly. Wilhelm Wundt, for
example, took his physiological training under Emil Du Bois-Reymond in the
1850s, at the hight of mechanism's triumphs in that field; and he shared
43 Von Kries, appendices to Helmholtz, Optics, vol. 3, esp. pp. 562, 621,
644 ff.
- 110 -
the scientific ideal which lay behind these efforts. He included Helm
holtzs version of the conservation of energy among the "physical axioms"
which he formulated in 1866, tracing it as Helmholtz did to the assumption
that all cause in nature is concerned with matter and motion.^ The psy
chophysical law which Gustav Theodor Fechner presented in 1860 had rather
different philosophical roots. With his modification of the proportional
relationship between stimulus and sensation posited by Ernst Heinrich We
ber to the logarithmic relation S = k log R (k = constant). Fechner thought
he had found a mathematical expression for the unity of mind and body
which was the central ideal of Naturphilosophie. Yet Fechner was as much
a physicist as a metaphysician; he took care to present his formula as
the result of empirical research, valid independently of any supposition
about the essence of mind and firmly based upon "the great energy prin-
45
ciple." Helmholtz found the Weber-Fechner law quite congenial to his
view of sensation, and proposed to generalize it in a way 'that would
preserve its validity in its deviations from experimental data at high
stimulus intensities.^
In his major systematic work, Grundzuge der Psychologie, however,
44 Wundt, Die physikalischen Axiome und ihre Beziehung zum Causalprin-

zip (Erlangen, 1866), cited to Ernst Cassirer, The Problem of Know
ledge (New Haven, 1950), pp. 87-88.
45 Gustav Theodor Fechner, Elemente der Psychophysik (Leipzig, 1860),

vol. 1, pp. 34 ff. See also the thorough study by Marilyn M a rs h a l l ,
"Physics, Metaphysics, and Gustav Fechner's Psychophysics", in Wood
ward & Ash, eds., The Problematic Science, pp. 65-81.
46 See R. Steven Turner, "Helmholtz, Sensory Physiology and the Disci

plinary Development of German Psychology" (cited above,, n. 16).
- Ill -
Wundt shifted the significance of the law to the psychological realm,
contending that not the stimuli themselves but the relative intensities
of the sensations are being compared. The law thus became "a special case
47
of a more general law of the relation or relativity of our inner states."
The debate thus begun in 1874 went on for the rest of the century. Though
Wundt's "law of relativity" was severely criticized by Stumpf and William
James, among others, most scholars agreed in the end that psychophysics
measured judgment, not sensation. This meant that consciousness was a
measurable datum in its own right, whether or not it was subject to the
conservation of energy. The conceptual and methodological "reconstruction
of psychophysics", as Edward Bradford Titchener later called it, was a
joint project of physicists like Plateau and J.L.R. Delboeuf and logicians
like Christoph Sigwart, Benno Erdmann and Alois Riehl, as well as experi-
48
menting psychologists like Wundt, Stumpf and G.E. Muller. It was in
this general atmosphere that the psychologists could hope to make their
field an exact science and also to present their findings as empirical
contributions to philosophy. The term "psychologism" had not yet become
a damning epithet.
Wundt took this "psychologism" further than most, and broke with
some of the most important ideas of his erstwhile mentor Helmholtz in the
process. He rejected the doctrine of specific sense energies, for example,
because it referred the multiplicity of sensation to a "qualitas occulta"
47 Wundt, Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie, (1874), 2nd ed. (Leip

zig, 1880), vol. 1, p. 351, cited in William Woodward, "Wundt's Program
for the New Psychology: Vicissitudes of Experiment, Theory and System",
in Woodward & Ash, eds., The Problematic Science, pp. 167-97.
48 Cf. Woodward, "Wundts Program", esp. pp. 177 ff.
- 112 -
in the sensory apparatus; and he dealt with contrast phenomena by postu
lating special "psychological contrast" processes instead of alluding to

49
errors of judgment. Such positions allowed him to introduce "appercep
tion", the key concept in his mature psychology. Criticizing the intel-
lectualism of Herberts psychology and the sensationalist associationism
of the Mills and Alexander Bain, Wundt expanded his principle or "law of
relativity" to the whole psyche, presenting consciousness as an unitas
multiplex of will, feeling and cognition. Apperception, in its various
forms, held this unity together.^ In simpler presentations of his psy
chology, he equated apperception with will, and in all of them he called
his system "voluntarism". Though he mentioned Schopenhauer in this con
nection, Wundt did not mean to invoke an elemental psychical force opposed
to intellect, but to subsume both in an all-encompassing "immanent teleo
logy" . It was not for nothing that he ended the Grundzuge with a paean
of praise to Leibniz, from whom he had taken the term "apperception" in
the first place.
49 Wundt, Grundriss der Psychologie, (1896), 8th ed. (Leipzig, 1907),

pp. 52 ff., 319.
50 For Wundts critique of intellectualism and associationism, see

Grundriss, pp. 14 ff. For the role of apperception in Wundts ma
ture system, see, e.g., Hans Van Rappard, Psychology as Self-Knowledge
(Assen, Netherlands, 1979), chap. 4.
51 The reference to "immanent teleology" occurs in Grundzuge, 6th ed.,

vol. 2, p. 562 and elsewhere. For the general characterization of
Wundts psychology on which this paragraph rests, see esp. Kurt Dan-
ziger, "Wilhelm Wundt and the Two traditions of Psychology, in Robert
W. Rieber, ed., Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology
(New York, 1980), pp. 73-88. In his earlier systematic writings Wundt
had subscribed to Darwinian evolutionary theory. With his increasing
emphasis upon active mind and immanent teleology, however, this feature
gradually disappeared from his system. See Robert Richards, "Wundts
- 113 -
In the 1880s Wundt anchored this systematic expansion of the psyche
in a comprehensive "system of the sciences." For him the sciences of
man (Geisteswissenschaften) are based upon "immediate" (immittelbare) ex
perience, the natural sciences upon "mediate" (mittelbare) experience,
which is abstracted from the former. Since "inner or psychological experi
ence is not a special area of experience alongside others, but immediate
experience itself," psychology is "the most general" science of man.
"Physiological" psychology - i.e., experimental psychology in Wundt's sense -
is a mediating link between the two groups of disciplines; but psychology
as a whole is the foundation of all the humanistic fields, which in turn

52
provide data for psychological analysis. It was in this context that
Wundt elaborated his concept of "psychical causality". In essence, he
held that the products of psychical processes are values, which can in
crease or decrease independently of the physical inputs or outputs involv
ed. Thus the "subjective value" of an act of will, for example, can in
crease over time, while the accompanying physical acts, e.g. muscular move-
53
ments, obey the energy principle. As he put it in 1894, this concept
was needed to establish both "the legitimacy of psychology as an independent
Early Theories of .Unconscious Inference and Cognitive Evolution in

their Relation to Darwinian Biopsychology," in Bringmann & Tweney, eds.,
Wundt Studies, pp. 42-70.
52 Wundt, Grundriss, pp. 18-19; cf. Logik (1883), 4th ed. (Stuttgart,
1920), vol. 3, chap. 3, and "fiber die Einteiluag der Wissenschaften",
in Kleine Schriften, vol. 3, p. 1-53, esp. pp. 28, 45. See also David
E. Leary, "Wundt and After: Psychology's Shifting Relations with the
Natural Sciences, Social Sciences and Philosophy", Jour. Hist. Behav.
Sci., 15 (1979), pp. 231-41, esp. pp. 234-35.
53 Wundt, Grundriss, p. 400.
- 114 -
discipline" and "the significance of the sciences of man in general.
If there is nothing but physical causality, then the fate of all these
disciplines is sealed.
Wundt admitted that it is not a simple task to derive the laws
of "psychical causality", especially in the hybrid "physiological" psy
chology, in which one kind of experience is studied in terms of the
other. We have already referred to the limits Wundt placed on experi
mentation in part one. Yet even the tables of reaction times and judg
ment thresholds obtained in the Leipzig laboratory were sufficient only
to determine the coexistence and succession of psychical processes,
principles comparable to Kepler* s laws of planetary motion. To yield
genuine psychical laws comparable to Newton*s laws in physics, Wundt believ
ed, deductive procedures based upon but going beyond such summaries of
observation were required.^
This conception of the relationship of method and theory brought
a number of precarious assumptions in its train. The furthest-reaching
of these was the idea that psychical processes have components, the most
primitive of which are simple sensations and feelings. Here as elsewhere
Wundt left himself open to the charge of inventing nonexistent entities.
When accused of this, Wundt pleaded guilty as charged in a little essay en
titled "Invented Sensations": simple sensations are "never given to us in
immediate internal perception but are the results of a psychological ab
straction." This abstraction is necessary because science does not merely
54 Wundt, "iiber psychische Kausalitat und das Prinzip des psychophysi-

schen Parallelismus", Philosophische Studien, 10 (1894), pp. 1-124,
here pp. 95-96.
55 Cf. Danziger, "Wundt*s Psychological Experiment" (cited in part one,

n. 48).
- 115 -
accept the existence of phenomena but tries to explain them causally as
the results of underlying processes.*^
Thus, despite his invocation of "psychical causality" and his con
ception of consciousness as process, Wundt had not abandoned the concept
of "the universe as consisting of elements with inalterable qualities,"
as Helmholtz had expressed it. What, then, were the "motions" of the
psychical elements; how did they combine with one another? At some points
in his writings Wundt made use of a chemical analogy similar to the one J.S.
Mill used to describe the fusion of associations. "Psychical entities"
(psychische Gebilde) such as spatial presentations, rhythms or affects, "con
sist of multiple connections of sensation and feeling elements"; but they
behave "in a way somewhat analogous to a chemical compound, the characte
ristics of which also cannot be determined by listing the qualities of
the' chemical elements of which it c o n s i s t s . W h e n he described the ge
neral laws of psychical causality, however, the chemical analogy disappear
ed in favor of the principle of "creative synthesis":
I understand Tinder the principle of creative synthesis the fact

that the psychical elements produce [erzeugen] connections by
means of their causal and successive influences, which indeed
cannot be explained from their components but also possess new
qualities which were not contained in the elements. The in
fluence of this principle confronts us in its simplest ... clear
est and most convincing form in simple sense-perception. Every
perception is divisible [zerlegbar] into elementary sensations.
But it is never merely the sum of these sensations, rather some
thing new with specific qualities arising from their connection.
Thus we combine the presentation of a spatial form [Gestalt] from
a number of light impressions. Perception remains constantly
creative over against the sum of sensations which is its substrate.
56 Wundt, "Erfundene Empfindungen". Philosophische Studien, 2 (1885),

p. 299, quoted in Danziger, "The History of Introspection Reconsidered",
Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 16 (1980), pp. 249-50.
57 Wundt, Grundriss, pp. 35-36.
- 116 -
This principle proves itself in ail connections of psychical

causality; it accompanies mental development from its first
to its most perfected stages. 58
This emergentist view has often been cited as a forerunner of

59
Gestalt theory. However, Wundt gave very little indication of how the
principle could be applied to solve specific research problems; nor did
he specify exactly what happens to the "elements after they have been
creatively synthesized - whether they change or stay 'the same', disap
pear or merely remain unnoticed but potentially conscious. Moreover,
as we have seen, the process itself, or rather the apperceptive processes
which make it possible, cannot be subjected to direct experimental exami
nation by Wundt's methods, only their existence supposed and their duration
measured. Attractive as the words "creative synthesis" sounded, the
principle was in fact little more than a synthetic creature of Wundt's
all-encompassing system.
The case of "creative synthesis" is only one of the many diffi
culties Wundt encountered in his attempt to reconcile his recognition
of the specific character and complexity of psychical processes and his
commitment to a particular style of natural-scientific explanation. On
both sides of this divide he faced the charge of inventing entities or
processes for system's sake, and in exchange for these he offered only
58 Wundt, "fiber psychische Kausalitat", pp. 112 ff. Cf. Wundt, Grundzuge,
6th ed., vol. 3, pp. 755 ff., where Wundt speaks of the "principle of
creative resultants."
59 See, e.g., Theo Herrmann, "Ganzheitspsychologie und Gestalttheorie",

in Heinrich Balmer, ed., Die Psychologie des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1,
Die europaische Tradition (Zurich, 1979), pp. 573-658, esp. pp. 576-77.
A different view by a student of the Gestalt theorists is in Wolfgang
Metzger, Psychologie, 4th ed. (Darmstadt, 1968), pp. 55 f.
- 117 -
restricted possibilities for experimental research. Younger scientists,
including some of Wundt's own students, were quick to try to break out
of this mold. Some of them drew aid and comfort in the attempt from the
critical positivism of Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius.
Mach clearly articulated his philosophy of science for the first
time in his 1872 essay on the history and root of the energy principle,
and his foil was Wilhelm Wundt. He asserted that Wundt's "physical
axioms" are not ultimate truths of physics as a whole, but only the re
sult of recent attempts by Helmholtz and others to extend the range
of principles which had been found useful in the mechanical theory of
heat. The redefinition of heat as a kind of motion is one of those prin
ciples; but the truth, Mach claimed, is that it is not important whether
we think of heat as a substance or not. "Hatter is possible appearance
[mogliche Erscheinung], an appropriate word for a gap in our thinking ...
We know as little about matter as we know about the soul." Even the ca
tegories of space and time, the a^priori character of which is apparently
so essential to mechanical physics, are "only determinations of appearances
by other appearances." As his and Hering*s work showed, we recognize-spa
tial relations by means of "the affections of our retina, of our optical
or other measuring apparatus. And in reality the x y z in our physical
equations are nothing more than convenient names for these affections ..."
The laws of physics are thus no more than economical summaries of "the
table of appearances." They have "only the value of a memory aid or for
mula, the shape of which, being arbitrary and indifferent, changes very
easily with our cultural standpoint.'^
60 Ernst Mach, Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung
- 118 -
Obviously this was a radical modification of the understanding of
science shared by Wundt, Helmholtz and many others in the mid-nineteenth
century. Wundt had said that his axioms were an attempt to preserve the
identity of physical reality in the face of the constant flux of phenomena.
Mach agreed with Wundt about the primacy of immeditate experience and
the virtues of gaining a mathematical hold upon it, but denied anything
more than instrumental value to such attempts. To use Wundts later ter
minology, he rejected the ontological suppositions behind Newtonian spe
culations. Though Gustav Kirchhoff did not share Machs cultural relativism,
he too proclaimed in 1877 that physics could be no more than the simplest
description of the motions occuring in nature.
The debate over the implications for physical theory of "phenome
nological physics", as Mach later called it, will concern us in section
five. Of interest here are the implications of his epistemological position
for psychology, which he presented most fully and forcefully in The Analysis
62
of Sensations (1886). With no substance behind the appearances, he said,
"thing, body, matter are nothing apart from the combinations of the elements
- the colors, sounds, and so forth - nothing apart from their so-called at
tributes." The things we see are only collections of sensations, their
der Arbeit (Prague, 1872), pp. 25-26, 31, 34-35. On the role of Mach's
psychology in his rejection of absolute space and time and of atomism,
see Francis Seaman, "Machs Rejection of Atomism", Journal of the History
of Ideas, 29 (1968), pp. 381-93, and especially Erwin Hiebert, "The Gene
sis of Machs Early Views on Atomism", in Robert S. Cohen & Raymond J.
Seeger, eds., Ernst Mach; Physicist and Philosopher (Dordrecht & Boston,
1970), pp. 79-106, esp. pp. 96 ff.
61 Cf. Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, pp. 88 f.
62 Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen (Jena, 1886), subsequently published

in English as The Analysis of Sensations, and the Relation of the Physi-
- 119 -
names only convenient designations for these collections; and the emotions,
too, are constituted of "sensations of pleasure and pain." The self which
allegedly perceives these things and feels pleasure or pain is only a
designation for a more strongly coherent portion of the "mass of sensa
tions": ,lwhen I_ cease to have the sensation green, when _I die, then the
elements no longer occur in the ordinary, familiar association. That is
all. Only an ideal, mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased
63
to exist." Obviously this is not Hering*s cautious, heuristic phenome
nalism of "seen objects", behind which real objects safely, if uncertain
ly rest, but ontological phenomenalism - the real thing, as it were.
Mach's use of the word "elements" in one sentence and "sensations"
in another was not an isolated mistake, but his constant practice. At
one point, as we have just seen, "elements" are simple sensory qualia,
"the colors, sounds and so forth"; at another, "the table, the tree and
so forth are my sensations." Actually, there are two difficulties here.
If all we perceive is a uniform "mass of sensations", then we should see
a collection of browns and greens, not a tree. Mach could have avoided
this problem by saying that the "sensation" tree is somehow composed of
brown and green "elements", or that the perception tree is composed of sensa
tions of brown and green; but that is evidently not what he wished to do.
The second difficulty is implied in the words "my sensations". If not only
cal to the Psychical. Quotations here are from the translation by

C.M. Williams & Sydney Waterlow (repr. New York, 1959) ; I have also
consulted the seventh German edition (Jena, 1918).
63 Mach, Analysis, pp. 6, 21, 23-24.
- 120 -
patches of color but also bouses, trees and sky belong to me as sensations,
then "the ego can be so extended as ultimately to embrace the entire world."^
Mach was accused time and again of solipsism or "subjective idealism", per
haps most loudly by Lenin in his 1909 polemic, Materialism and Empirio-
. 65
criticism.
One of the many serious implications of solipsism is that there can
be no hope of obtaining securely shareable knowledge either of nature or
the mind. When he addressed the issue of science directly, Mach therefore
tried to make more careful distinctions. Here the "elements" become an
all-inclusive third realm. They constitute "a single coherent mass only",
but the word "sensations" can be applied to them "only in their functional
dependence upon an ego ... In another functional dependence they are at
the same time physical objects."^ Thus the proper method of science re
mains everywhere the same - the determination of functional relationships
among observable qualities, or "connecting the appearances." The best
science is the simplest, most "economical" set of such connections, be
cause economy of thought serves the same practical purpose in science as
the ego does for sensations - "to provide the fully developed human indi
vidual with as perfect a means of orientation as p o s s i b l e . 'Neutral
64 Mach,Analysis, p. 13 & p. 13, n. 1.
65 V.I. Lenin, Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909), Eng. trans.

(Peking, 1972), esp. p. 34.
66 Mach, Analysis, pp. 16-17. For Machs use of the term "elements" as
an escape from solipsism, see Robert S. Cohen, "Ernst Mach: Physics,
Perception and the Philosophy of Science", in: Cohen & Seeger, eds.,
Ernst Mach: Physicist and Philosopher, pp. 126-64, on p. 128.
67 Mach,Analysis, p. 37. The phrase "connecting the appearances" comes

from Mach's biographer, John T. Blackmore, Ernst Mach: His Work, Life
- 121 -
monism", as this doctrine later came to be called, could indeed have im
portant advantages for the division of labor in science. Functional re
lations could be determined separately for physical, physiological and
psychological "elements", then these in turn related, with no advance com
mitment required about the nature of the processes described. So long as
Mach meant by "functional relations" only mathematical functions and so long
as these remained only "quantitative norms, regulating my sensory presenta-

68
tion of the facts", there was no conflict with sensationalism.
The destructive implications of all this for any conception of "psy
chical causality" were obvious. For Mach "there is no rift between the phy
sical and the psychical, no inside and outside ... the boundary-line between
69
the physical and the psychical is solely practical and conventional." The
Zurich philosopher Richard Avenarius employed a somewhat different argument
which enabled him to draw the first conclusion without having to accept the
second. He began by criticizing what he took to be a logical error at the ba
sis of all conceptions of experience which employ concepts like "soul, "con
sciousness" or "inner experience". Such thinking presupposes what Avenarius
termed "introjection", the idea that there are "sensations in us", localized
in the brain; this in turn requires a "projection hypothesis" to account for
the fact that we actually locate objects outside ourselves. As an alterna-
and Influence (Berkeley, Calif., 1972), pp. 34-35. On the economy

of thought see also Mach, The Science of Mechanics (1883),trans. Tho
mas J. McCormack, 6th ed. (LaSalle, 111., 1960), pp. 577 ff., and
"Die okonomische Natur der physikalischen Forschung" (1882), in Popu-
larwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen, 4th ed. (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 217-44.
68 Mach, Analysis, pp. 314, 316. Cf. Geschich te und Wurzel, pp. 57-58.
69 Mach, Analysis, pp. 310-11.
- 122 -
tive to such views, which ultimately rest upon metaphysical dualism, he
proposed that all science be based upon a "natural world-concept drawn
from that which is given (vorgefunden) in "pure experience". He structure
ed this realm of pure experience into two regions, ego and environment,
which are always given together and in relation. Within the environment
he distinguished things and other selves, which are both experienced as
"not I", but in different ways.^ The important point is that for Avenarius
these distinctions are only descriptive, not absolute. We are not talking
about different realities, or about "mediate" versus "immediate" experience,
but about different aspects of immediate experience treated as a unity
"beyond the opposition of inner and outer." To summarize his argument
Avenarius quoted some lines from Goethe, which we will have reason to re
member :
Always in your view of nature

One thing above all remark;
Naught is inside, naught is outside;
What's within, that is without.
So then grasp without delaying
This so sacred open secret.
(Musset im Naturbetrachten
Immer eins wie alles acbten;
Nzcbts ist drinnen, nicbts ist drauBen;
Venn was innen, das 1st auBen.
So ergreifet obne Saumnis
Heilig offentlicb Gebeimnis.)î
70 Richard Avenarius, Der menschliche Weltbeeriff (Leipzig, 1891), pp. 4 f.

& Sect. 150. Cf. "Bemerkungen zum Begriff des Gegenstandes der Psy
chologie ;" Vierteljahresschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 18
(1894), pp. 137-61, 400-20; 19 (1895), pp. 1-18, 129T45, here vol. 18,
pp. 144 ff., 404 ff.
71 Goethe, "Epirrhema" (1820), quoted in Avenarius, "Bemerkungen," vol.

18, p. 400. The translation is my own.
- 123 -
From this basis Avenarius then developed a clear conception of
the task of psychology. While philosophy's purpose is to develop and
establish the concept of experience as such, and physics is concerned
only with experience as independent of the individual, psychology treats
"every experience in its dependence upon the individual in relation to
whom it is an experience." Concretely, this meant experience as de
pendent upon the body,or part of the body, which does or has it. Ave
narius spoke here of "system C", a "part of the nervous system" (ner-
voses Teilsystem), which he tended to identify with the brain. We ran
abstract from this and speak about perception, thought and feeling
alone as "experience"; but it is possible, at least in principle, to
compare the constitution of these abstracted experiences with changes
in "system C", and thus to arrive at an empirical instead of a metaphy-

72
sical form of psychophysical parallelism.
This seemed like a much more ambitious project than Mach's con
necting the appearances. In fact, however, Mach believed that mathema
tical connections axe not mere symbols, but representations; he wanted
the observables, too. He had already made this clear in 1865. In 1886
he cited that work again; but now, with his philosophy clearly stated,
he could stop calling his parallelism a "heuristic principle of research"
and be more explicit:
If I see figures which are the same in size and shape but dif
ferently colored, I seek, in connection with the different
color-sensations, certain identical space-sensations and corres
ponding identical nerve-processes. If two figures are similar
72 Avenarius, "Bemerkungen", vol. 18, pp. 417-18, and vol. 19, p. 14.
Cf. Avenarius, Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (Leipzig, 1888 ff.), Sect.
69 ff.
- 124 -
(that is, if they yield partly identical space sensations) then

the corresponding nerve-processes also contain partly identical
components.73
In later editions of The Analysis of Sensations Mach indicated
that the meant the word "seek" quite literally. Given the appropriate
physical and chemical apparatus, he imagined, he or someone else would
be able to confirm psychophysical parallelism directly by observing the
brain processes which occur during sensation.
Since such observations were not yet practicable, Mach joined
Eering in accepting introspection as "not only an important means, but
in many cases the only means of obtaining information as to fundamental
facts." Ideally, however, psychology should be "purely physiological";
for "nature is a single whole." Physics, physiology and psychology sup
port and supplement one another, "and it is only when they are united that
74
a complete science is formed." The founders of the Vienna school of
so-called "logical positivism" later claimed Mach as their predecessor
in the search for the principles of unified science. However, they put
their hopes in the logic and language of science alone. The unity Mach
sought was clearly not intended to be so exclusively formalistic. Mach
was deeply influenced by Fechner in the 1860s,and though he took care to
distance himself from Fechner*s panpsychism in The Analysis of Sensations,
the romantic hope of the unity of mind and body lived no more vibrantly
than in Mach*s psychophysical program. ^
73 Mach, Analysis, p. 62.
74 Mach, Analysis, pp. 339-41.
75 For the influence of Fechner on Mach, cf. Blackmore, Ernst Mach,

pp. 14-15, 30-31.
- 125 -
Such, views justified the combination of physical, physiological
and psychological research which Mach had pursued for decades. Obser
vations drawn from this work filled the pages of The Analysis of Sensa
tions. One of the most famous of these was Machs drawing of the way
a room looks to an observer reclining on a sofa, including a pair of
well-shod feet, crossed legs, half a mustache and part of a nose. This
was an effective illustration of his and Avenarius' assertion that the
body, or a portion of it - in Avenarius' language the ego - is a per
cept like any other. Another example was the square which, when pre
sented with one corner pointing downward, ceased to be a square at all
and became, psychologically, a diamond, although its geometrical dimen-
soins remained the same. Mach used this and similar figures to bring
home Hering's point about the discrepancy between geometrical space
and the"space of sensation", with its three directions - up and down, right
and left, before and behind. Thus, in Mach's view, in order for two
visual forms to be perceived as similar, not only the sensations associat
ed with their geometry but also the associated "sensations of direction"'
(Richtungsempfindungen) had to agree.^
These and other such observations soon became starting points for
important theoretical discussions in psychology, some of which will be
presented below. However, Mach's tendency to attribute all such facts
to uniform "sensations" did not escape criticism. The young philosopher.
Alexius Meinong, a student of Brentano, pointed out the inconsistencies
in Mach's use of the terms "element" and "sensation". Elementary experi
ences, such as "red", could not be equated with the sensory inputs, nerve
76 Mach, Analysis, pp. 18 ff., 39, 106 ff., 223.
- 126 -
impulses or light waves, which are not directly experienced and could
very well be more complicated than the percepts which they cause.^
Carl Stumpf wrote a highly critical review of Mach's work the year
it appeared. Given his psychological approach to space perception,
which emphasized judgments of unity, Stumpf was bound to take offence
at Mach's subscribing to the theory that visual space is built up from
sensations of eye movements, and his reduction of judgment to "the
enrichment, extension, and supplementation of sensational presentations
by other sensational presentations." Such views inhibited rather than
advanced research, in Stumpf's opinion. Naming the phenomena and then
adding the suffix "sensation" seemed an extraordinarily heavy-handed

78
way of dealing with complex psychological facts.
Such criticism apparently helped to give Mach the reputation of
being an amateur in philosophical circles; a second German edition of

79
The Analysis of Sensations did not appear until 1900. Nonetheless,
his influence slowly grew, both inside and outside the academy. His
lectures became quite popular, even fashionable, in Vienna after he moved
there from Prague to take up a professorship in "inductive philosophy".
His iconoclastic sensationalism was taken up by advocates of literary
77 Alexius Meinong, "fiber Begriff und Eigenschaften der Empfindung"

(1888), cited in Lindenfeld, Transformation of Positivism, p. 100.
78 Stumpf, review of Mach in Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 27 (1886),

pp. 947-48; cf. Blackmore, Ernst Mach, pp. 120 ff. The quotation
is from Analysis, pp. 317-18.
79 Blackmore, loc. cit. Avenarius was apparently better received; cf.

Mach's defensive remarks in Analysis, pp. 354-55.
- 127 -
"impressionism like Hermann Bahr and Hugo von Hoffmansthal, and his re
jection of categories like substance, space and time won him a passio
nate following among younger scientists after the turn of the century,
80
including Friedrich Adler and Albert Einstein. In the interval, at
least some of the central features of Machs and Avenarius' philosophy,
particularly the "economical" elimination of psychical causality, the use
of sensations as both chief source of data and primary interpretive
principle, and the hope of discovering the functional dependence of
these sensations upon organic processes with the aid of introspective
evidence, became matters of course for some of the leaders of the post-
Wundtian generation of experimenting psychologists. For students of
Wundt, like Oswald Kulpe und E.B. Titchener, the transition could actual
ly be quite simple. Once they had accepted Machs or Avenarius episte
mology and Mach's general philosophy of science, they could take the
results they had learned to assemble in Leipzig as Machian "tables of
appearances", expand these data by increasing the range of permissable
introspection, and reject Wundt's speculations about underlying proces
ses as inappropriate procedure even for physical science.
The most wholehearted participant in the uprising, at least at
first, was Oswald Kulpe. In the early 1890s he was Privatdozent and
Wundt's assistant in Leipzig, and the master apparently regarded him as
his right-hand man. When he asked Ktilpe to write an outline of psychology
80 On Mach and literary "impressionism", see Richard Hamann & Jost

Hermand, Epochen deutscher Kultur, vol. 3, Impressionismus ( F r a n k -
furt a.M., 1977), pp. 187 ff., and Manfred Diersch, Empiriokritizis-
mus und Impressionismus: tiber Beziehungen zwischen Philosophie, Asthe-
tik und Literatur um 1900 in Wien (Berlin, G.D.R., 1977). On Adler
and Einstein see Lewis Feuer, Einstein and the Generations of Science
(New York, 1974).
- 128 -
for the institute's lecture and laboratory courses, however, Wundt
was disappointed with the result, which appeared in 1893. At the very
beginning of the book, Kulpe rejected the notion of the "psychical in
dividual" as the subject of psychology, substituting the "corporeal
individual" because "the objects of psychological enquiry would never
present the advantage of measurability and unequivocalness, possessed
in so high a degree by the objects investigated by natural science,
if they could be brought into relation only with the psychical indivi-
81
dual." He obviously believed that sensations had these advantages.
He devoted nearly half the work to them and counted them with extra
ordinary elan, discovering, for example, 696 brightnesses. He added
space and time to the sensory attributes, as Mach did, and called ideal
presentations (Vorstellungen) not products of active psychical proces-

82
ses but "centrally excited sensations."
Kulpe understandably tried to avoid open opposition to Wundt;
toward the end of the book, however, he rejected the key concept of ap
perception. Though he did not reject the observations on which the
concept had been based, he doubted the necessity of postulating an ad
ditional process to account for them: "We can discover no good reason
for regarding it as a really new form of connection, as incapable of
subsumption (at least in principle) to the familiar laws of reproduc-
81 Oswald Kulpe, Grundriss der Psychologie (Leipzig, 1893), p. 4.

For this and the following account see also Daaziger, "The Positi
vist Repudiation of Wundt" (cited in part one, n. 66). For Kulpe's
early career see David Lindenfeld, "Oswald Kulpe and the Wurzburg
School" (cited in part one, n. 153).
82 Riilpe, Grundriss, pp. 215 ff. For Mach's view on space and time
as sensory "systems" see Analysis, p. 349. Cf. Boring, Sensation
and Perception, pp. 3-4, 10.
- 129 -
S3
tion." It was at this point that Kiilpe*s views coincided with those of
other advocates of strict sensationalism and associationism, such as
G.E. Muller and Theodor Ziehen, who were apparently not directly influenc-
84
ed by Mach. Kulpe did not indicate his own sources clearly in 1893.
In 1895, however, after his accession to a chair of philosophy in Wurz
burg, he published a widely-read introduction to philosophy in which

85
he acknowledged his debt to Avenarius epistemological views.
Wundts reaction was to write a series of major essays and his own
outline of psychology, clarifying his views, attacking Kulpe's and
devoting more than 300 pages to polemics against Mach and Avenarius.
The main point of his argument was that the new approach would turn
psychology into "applied physiology". The entire achievement of the
natural sciences was based upon abstraction from the subject, he argued;
it is "an obvious logical error to use precisely those relations in which
the specific character of the psychical is not prominent as a basis for

86
conclusions about the general characteristics of the psychical." Since
Mach, Avenarius and Kiilpe all based their definitions upon a concept of
83 Kulpe, Grundriss, p. 448.
84 For Mullers opposition to Wundts apperception, see his article

in the Gottinger gelehrte Anzeiger (1891), Nr. 11, p. 396, cited in
C. Muller, Die Apperzeptionstheorie von W. Wundt und Th. Lipps, Phil.
Diss. Munster, 1910, p. 67. For Ziehen's views see his Leitfaden
der physiologischen Psychologie (1891), 5th ed. (Jena, 1900).
85 Kiilpe, Einleitung in die Philosophic (Leipzig, 1895); cf. Danziger,

"Positivist Repudiation", p. 209.
86 Wundt, "iiber die Definition der Psychologie", Philosophische Studien,

12 (1896), pp. 33-34, quoted in Danziger, "Positivst Repudiation",
p. 211.
- 130 -
experience which denied any special status to, or even the real existence
of such an abstraction from the subject, there was clearly no possibi
lity of dialogue here.
As the references to Muller and Ziehen suggest, however, Mach and
Avenarius were not so much the initiators of as' participants in a broader
trend. In his 1885 study of memory, for example, Hermann Ebbinghaus
applied what he called "the method of natural science" to phenomena
which Wundt had specifically exluded from experimental investigation.
His innovation was the use of a statistically manipulable unit, the non
sense syllable, two consonants with a vowel between. He measured the
time or the number of trials required to learn series of these selected
at random, then computed the saving in later relearning as a percentage
of the original figure. He found that the saving was a decreasing func
tion of either the time or the number of intervening members between
the syllables in the original series. Similar results were obtained with
cantos from Byrons Don Juan, thus showing that meaninglessness was not
the crucial factor. In its classical form, the law of association de
manded immediate contiguity or succession for effective retention. Ebbing
haus thought that his findings gave that law "a genuine rounding out and,
87
so to speak, a greater reasonableness."
Ebbinghaus1 success encouraged Kiilpe and many others to hope that
all of the so-called "higher" mental processes could be treated experimental-

88
ly. However, the functional relations he discovered were not precisely
87 Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory; A Contribution to Experimental Psychology

(1885), trans. Henry A. Ruger & Clara A. Bussenius (repr. New York,
1964), pp. 7, 22 ff., 107-08.
88 Kiilpe, Grundriss, p. 12.
- 131 -
the kind that Mach had in mind. There was no mention of sensations or
physiological correlates, only what Ebbinghaus called "statistical
constants". He explicitly stated that these are all we can hope to
obtain in the study of memory. They do not reflect the workings of
"a combination of causes exactly alike", as physical and chemical laws
presumably do. Instead, Ebbinghaus compared them to social statistics,
which represent "no definite and separate causal systems but combina-
89
tions of such which are by no means of themselves transparent."
Despite this opposition of natural and social science, this causal
agnosticism was actually quite consistent with Kirchhoff's doctrine
of "simplest description", and also with the statistical methods be
ing developed in thermodynamics by Ludwig Boltzmann and others at just
this time. But it was not so easily compatible with Mach's strict
psychophysical parallelism.
Nonetheless, Ebbinghaus associated himself with the new trend in
the first volume of his textbook of psychology, published in 1897.
There he substituted the term "organism" for Kiilpe's "corporeal indi
vidual": psychology "treats of those structures, processes, relations
of the world whose specific character is essentially conditioned by the

90
constitution and functions of an organism, an organized individual."
In an address of honor to the third International Congress of Psycholo
gy in 1900, he identified the increasing shift from physical to biologic
al terminology encouraged by the writings of Darwin and Spencer as the
main sign of psychology's scientific progress, along witb the growth of
89 Ebbinghaus, Memory, pp. 13-14.
90 Ebbinghaus, Grundzuge der Psychologie, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1897), p. 7.
- 132 -
91
measurement. He modified the strictness of Machian sensationalism
along these lines, admitting, for example, that pleasure and pain
could not be treated as simple sensations because of their important

92
role as determinants of the movement of the organism. But the ten
dency to construct that organism from separate units and to avoid cen
tral, guiding processes was evident throughout Ebbinghaus' systematic
work.
In his popular textbook of psychology, for example, he described
the nervous system as "ideally decentralized; everything passes by every
thing else and ends in separate places" in the brain. Purposive acti
vities such as attention and thought are possible "only by means of mas
sive and multiple connections of all the regions with one another" via
innumerable "association fibers". The organism as a whole he called "a
self-preservation machine", which secures its existence first in the
struggle of its parts against one another for nourishment, then in
the further struggle of the individual to maintain itself in its environ
ment: the metaphor of struggle, he acknowledged, came from Darwin. The
soul in this system "proves to be an entity of the same kind as the
body"; in fact it "resides in the extended matter of the brain, in dif-

93
ferent places at once. Its connection with it somehow fills the space."
In the preface to this book, Ebbinghaus defended himself against the
charge of materialism, claiming that the reader would find here "the
91 Ebbinghaus, "Die Psychologie jetzt und vor hundert Jahren", in 3.

Congres Internationale de Psychologie (Paris, 1901), p. 59.
92 Ebbinghaus, Grundzuge, p. 549. Cf. Danziger, "Positivist Repudiation",

p. 229, n. 63.
93 Ebbinghaus, Abriss der Psychologie (1908), 4th ed. (1912), pp. 37, 41,
49.
- 133 -
94
'materialism* of Spinoza, Goethe and Fecbner." Actually, he had
turned Fechner and Spinoza upside down; though the "soul" was co-pre
sent everywhere, he gave it precious little to do. Despite his dis
claimers, his only real defense against such charges was his insistence
that organicism was not the same as physicalism - an important point
for scientists, perhaps, but a distinction without a difference for
suspicious philosophers.
With the words sensationalism, associationism and organism we
have named the central doctrines held by leading members of the post-
1890 generation of experimenting psychologists in Germany. All of them
were at least consistent with, if not actually constituent parts of
neopositivist philosophy. So long as direct observation of the brain
remained impossible, that philosophys causal agnosticism was bound to
share an uneasy coexistence with its proclaimed "empirical" parallelism.
Even so, the limitation of science to "connecting the appearances" appa
rently provided more than enough support for getting down to the work
of measuring the psychical with the tools at hand, and without the bal
last of speculations about "psychical causality". At the same time,
it offered the assurance that physicists did, or ought to do the same
kind of science. The Darwinian - or perhaps pseudo-Darwinian. - rationale
which Mach offered for his doctrine of thought-economy was certainly no

95
deterrent to its acceptance. G.E. Muller, for example devoted a sec-
94 Ebbinghaus, Abriss, p. 4.
95 According to Maurice Mandelbaum, the word "pseudo-Darwinian" is

appropriate, because Darwin did not assert that all aspects of or
ganic life must have adaptive value, but only that no markedly harm
ful factors will persist. See History, Man and Reason: A Study in Nine
teenth Century Thought (Baltimore, 1971), p. 17 & p. 378, n. 37.
- 134 -
tion of his essay on the psychophysics of visual sensation to the
probable usefulness of the color processes he had postulated in the
"struggle for existence."^
It would be incorrect to imply, however, that the shift of views
just outlined was universally accepted in Germany, even by younger ex
perimenting psychologists. One prominent student of Wundt, Hugo Mun
sterberg, accepted the idea that the task of psychology is "to analyse
all the contents of consciousness into their elements, to determine
the laws of their connection and to seek empirically for every element
ary psychical content the accompanying physiological excitation." But
he also accepted Wundt's position that this alone would not do justice
to the active character of psychical processes like will. For these

97
he offered a frankly Fichtean voluntarism. Students of Brentano, such
as Stumpf and Meinong, referred, as their teacher did, to the analysis
of consciousness into "elements", or, as Stumpf called it, "the finest
analysis of the given"; yet their views were not to be confused with
98
sensationalism or organicism.
It seems as though we have here a "scientific community" without
a paradigm. The group which came together at the biannual meetings of
96 Miller, "Psychophysik" (cited abouve, n. 32), vol. 14, pp. 406 ff.
97 Hugo Miinsterberg, "tiber Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie",

(Leipzig, 1891), pp. 126-27, 108 ff.
98 For Brentano*s use of the term "elements", see Psychologie vom

empirischen Standpunkt, e.g., p. 225. Cf. Stumpf, Psychologie
und Erkenntnistheorie", (cited in part one, n. 81), p. 491.
- 135 -
the "Society for Experimental Psychology" was unified by little more
than a definite idea of what psychology should not be - philosophical
speculation - and a vague idea of what it should become - an empirical
science. The route to that goal remained a matter of dispute at both
the theoretical and the methodological levels. Nonetheless, both the
psychophysical methods developed by Miller and others into a fine art

/
and Ebbinghaus* memory experiments proved to be durable "exemplars",
99
as Thomas Kuhn would call them - theory-laden models of procedure.
We have already seen them at work alongside Stumpf *s experimental phe
nomenology at the Berlin institute. As that example shows, the use
of such methods did not require full acceptance of critical positivist
epistemology; but it did involve important presuppositions about the
conduct of science. In 1908 Ebbinghaus brought one of these into the
open. It is false, he asserted, to say that the "atomistic splinter
ing" characteristic of scientific method makes it impossible to regain
the "living totality" with which one began:
From the beginning the body is for the biologist nothing else
but a unified whole, no less unitary than the soul, originally
simple, later much more rigidly structured; and this whole has
brought forth the parts, not the other way around. But in order
to come to know it in detail and show this to others, as if
after all desired, one must necessarily proceed as if the oppo
site were true; one must begin with the observation of the
parts and separate these from the whole in which alone they
exist by analysis and abstraction, or try to differentiate them
within it. Precisely this is the intention and procedure of
the psychologist. He is aware of and seeks to awaken understand
ing of [the fact] that real mental life is a living unity and
not a sum of isolated components, as he is falsely alleged to
99 For Kuhns explication of this concept, see his "Second Thoughts on

Paradigms", in The Essential Tension (Chicago, 1977), pp. 293-319.
(cited in the introduction, above, n. 26).
- 136 -
maintain
The publication of Hans Vaihinger*s magnum opus, The Philosophy
of As-If,in 1911 was evidently a timely event. However, Vaihinger
composed his testament to "fictionalism" in the 1870s, when Mach first ar
ticulated his conventionalism; and we have seen that Wundt had already
admitted the use of "invented sensations" in the 1890s. Common to Wundt's
earlier statement and the latest declaration from Ebbinghaus was their
tone of militant defensiveness. Accusations of the kind Ebbinghaus re
ferred to had been common currency in German - and not only German -
philosophical circles for nearly twenty years by this time. Although
these critiques crossed paths with critical positivism at a number of
points, they nonetheless went to the heart of the justifications of
fered for experimental psychology's scientific procedures by positivists
and non-positivists alike.
3. Revisions of Mind; Bergson, James, Dilthey, Husserl
As early as 1889, Henri Bergson evoked precisely the dichotomy
between science and experience to which Ebbinghaus referred in the pas
sage just cited. In Bergson's view, experience viewed as a succession of
separate, thing-like "states" is no less an abstraction from lived con
sciousness than time as measured by the hands of a clock; both are fun
damentally "spatial". Lived consciousness, on the other hand, is a spa
tio-temporal continuum, "like a mutual penetration, a solidarity, an
100 Ebbinghaus, Abriss, p. 51. Emphasis mine.
- 137 -
intimate organization of elements, each of which is representative of
the others and neither distinguished from nor isolated by abstracting
thought."101 This "duration", or "real time", is difficult to express
in language, because the practical requirements of communication de
mand the selection of common properties from the flow. In its concen
tration upon measurable "elements" of consciousness, natural science
only follows this "instinctive tendency to solidify our impressions"
and raises it to a still higher level of abstraction. The success
of this extension, Bergson argued, is based on the conventional usage
of the limited kinds of activities and sensations which confirm it,

102
particularly those associated with counting and measuring.
Associationist psychology clearly exemplifies the workings
of "spatial" science, according to Bergson. We can describe the move
ment of an object in space, for example, by postulating an infinite
number of reference points, through which the object may be said to
move. But "they are not parts of the movement; they are so many views
taken of it; they are, we say, only supposed stopping points. Never
is the mobile reality in any of these points; the most we can say is
that it passes through them." Such approximations are perfectly suit
able for practical purposes, he conceded; "but if metaphysics is possible,
101 Henri Bergson, Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience

(1889), 96th ed. (Paris, 1961), p. 4. '
102 Bergson, Essai, p. 97. For a discussion of Bergsons critique of

physics, see Milic Capek, Bergson and Modem Physics; A Re-inter
pretation and Re-evaluation (Dordrecht & Boston, 1971).
- 138 -
. . , ..103
it is something else.
This was precisely the point which Mach had driven home with
such emphasis. From very different starting points and by very differ
ent arguments, the two men had arrived at similar conclusions about the
conventional character of science and its incompatibility with meta
physics. Mach, too, referred to the discontinuity between the physi
cist's measured time and the actually experienced "system of time sen-
104
sations." But the two thinkers had different ends in view, and so drew
different, though complementary implications from their analysis. In
stead of rejecting metaphysics, as Mach did, Bergson proposed an intel
lectual division of labor. Scientists could retain their analytical me
thods, while metaphysicians would strive for a "true empiricism", which
would seek by intuition to keep "as close to the original itself as pos
sible ... to make an absolutely new effort for each new object it stu
dies. It cuts for the object a concept appropriate to the object alone
Despite the vagueness of the term "intuition", Bergson's reduction
of metaphysics to a question of method can thus be seen as an important
concession to positivism. Still, his use of the term instead of a
103 Bergson, "Introduction to Metaphysics" (1903), trans. in The Crea

tive Mind (New York, 1946), pp. 213-14, 216. I have altered the
translation slightly.
105 Bergson, "Introduction", p. 207.
106 For this point see Peter Gorsen, Zur Phanomenologie des Bewusstseins-
stroms. Bergson, Dilthey, Husserl, Simmel und die lebensphilosophi-
schen Antinomien (Bonn, 1966), p. 116.
- 139 -
more neutral designation like "phenomenology" lent neither aid nor com
fort to anyone who might have wished to evaluate his concept of conscious
ness empirically. This choice of words was inevitable from the beginning,
since Bergson had equated point-to-point analysis with natural science
in general, thus making it seem inherently incommensurable with his
holistic model of experience. The consequences of this logic became
clearer in Bergson's most popular work, Creative Evolution. Here he
asked "whether the natural system which we call living beings must be
assimilated to the artificial system that science cuts out within inert
matter, or whether they must not rather be compared to that natural system
which is the whole of the u n i v e r s e . M e r e human intuition seemed in
adequate to this expanded ontological frame of reference. Bergson there
fore suggested that intuition was rooted in an all-encompassing life-
principle called the elan vital. Though he protested that the term was
only a heuristic construct, it was evident that with its promulgation
he had left his original basis in direct experience. There was no way
of experiencing the elan vital even by intuition, since it was what made
intuition possible. We could thus know it only negatively, and so the
analogy some critics drew to Plotinus' Neoplatonism of the One and its
108
many manifestations was accurate, despite Bergson's denials.
The influence of Bergson's philosophy, especially his notions of
time and of memory, on French literature is well known. His major works
were all translated into German between 1908 and 1912. The high point
107 Bergson, Creative Evolution (1907), trans. Arthur Mitchell (1911)

(reprint, New York, 1944), p.36.
108 For this point see Vladimir Jankelevitch, Henri Bergson (Paris, 1959),
p. 10.
- 140 -
of his accessibility to the educated public in Germany thus coincided
with the revival of metaphysics propagated by Rudolf Eucken, Wilhelm

109
Windelband and others. We shall see, however, that this did not pre
vent experimenting psychologists like Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka
from taking note of his critique of associationistic psychology and
heeding his call for psychological categories better suited to lived
experience.
Though he did not know of Bergson's work in 1890, many passages
in William James' Principles of Psychology show that he had come to some
of the same conclusions. Among these was his condemnation of "the
entire English psychology derived from Locke and Hume, and the entire
German psychology derived from Herbart, so far as they both treat 'ideas'
as separate subjective entities that come and go." The conception of
consciousness as a collection or succession of constant, retrievable
"ideas" meant that
The continuous flow of the mental stream is sacrificed, and in

its place an atomism, a brickbat plan of construction, is preach
ed, for the existence of which no good introspective grounds can
be brought forward, and out of which presently grow all sorts
of paradoxes and contradictions, the heritage and woe of stu
dents of the mind. 110
For James this was one instance of "the psychologist's fallacy" the
109 See Anthony Edward Pilkington, Bergson and his Influence - A Reas
sessment (Cambridge, England, 1976). Matter and Memory (1896) was
translated in 1908, with a preface by Windelband, the "Introduction
to Metaphysics" and the Essay came in 1911, followed by Creative
Evolution in 1912. For a commentary on Bergson and the revival of
metaphysics in German philosophy, see 0. Ewald, "Die deutsche Phi
losophic im Jahre 1912", Kant Studien 18 (1913), pp. 339-82.
110 William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890); (repr. New York,
1950),vol. 1, p. 196.
- 141 -
confusion of thought with its object, or with the "objective" psycholo
gists view of it. He singled out the doctrines of unconscious in
ference and unnoticed sensations as prize examples of where such confu
sions could lead. Helmholtz, for example, attributed visual form per
ception to the fusion of retinal images from the two eyes, and contend
ed that we can discover the original sensations by first opening and
closing one eye, than the other. In James' view this involved the assump
tion, unsupported by introspective evidence, that sensations present
in monocular vision remained unaltered but unnoticed in binocular vision;
what Helmholtz calls "the 'fusion of many sensations into one' is really
the production of one sensation by the co-operation of many organ-?c con-
ditions.
This combination of reliance upon introspection and attribution
of the findings to "organic conditions" was the sum and substance of James'
credo for scientific psychology. He called it a "psychophysical postu- _
late" or "empirical parallelism", and its similarity to the doctrines of
Mach and Avenarius appears obvious. Numerous references in the Principles
testify to the sympathy with which James received many of their views,
and those of Hering as well; his characterization of rightness, leftness,

112
upon and down as pure sensations may serve as an example. However,
he did not derive his position from them; and his reference to "the con
111 James, Principles, vol. 1, p. 521 n. For similar criticisms of

Lotze and Stumpf, cf. pp. 522-23 n. For a discussion of the ar
gument cf. Richard High, "Does James' Criticism of Helmholtz Really
Involve a Contradiction?", Jour. Hist. Behav. Sod., 14 (1978),
pp. 337-43.
112 James, Principles, vol. 2, pp. 149-52.
- 142 -
tinuous flow of the mental stream" implied a view of consciousness rather
different from that of Mach's sensationalism. Mach's empirical parallelism
demanded for two similar figures corresponding nerve-processes with "iden
tical components" - a point-to-point isomorphism. For James, as we have
seen, perception is an integral thing; the "organic conditions" corres
ponding to it must therefore share this characteristic. He asserted in 1884
that
The whole drift of recent brain-inquiry sets towards the notion

that the brain always acts as a whole, and that no part of it
can be discharging without altering the tensions of all the
other parts. The best symbol for it seems to be an electric
donductor, the amount of whose charge at any one point is a func
tion of the total charge elsewhere.
Drawing upon evidence from aphasics, Bergson would later make a similar
claim about brain action. Wolfgang Kohler later employed the example of
the distribution of charge on a conductor to illustrate his own version
of isomorphism.**"^
This doctrine, or theoretical commitment, underlies many of the
conceptions in James' psychology, not least that of "the stream of
thought". Here, however, James went beyond both Mach's "mass of sensa
tions" and Bergson's undifferentiated flow of "lived time". For Bren
tanos .'rationalistic conception of the unity of consciousness, held
together by awareness of objects in connection with their predecessors
113 Quoted in Pastore, Selective History, p. 245. Pastore recognized

that this is an important anticipation of Gestalt theory, but imme
diately moves to weaken the point by saying that "James actually
adopted the mosaic model of the functioning of the nervous system
when he explained some fact in detail." Cf. p. 401, n. 24. For
Bergson's view of brain action, see Matter and Memory (1896),
- 143 -
and successors, James substituted an "Object" constituted by an immediate
ly "felt fringe" of expectation and relation -which we know only by active
"acquaintance", and by "things" cognized intellectually, which we know,
"about". The "fringes" he attributed to "the influence of a faint brain-
process upon our thought, as it makes it aware of relations and objects
but dimly perceived," as for example when we hear a thunderclap and imme
diately have the vague expectation that something - alightning bolt - is

114
about to happen. Thus James, like Bergson, resorted to extraintellect
ual factors to account for the unity of the mental stream. The two wri
ters also agreed that we grasp only part of the flow at any given moment,
and that practical interests act as a principle of selection. For James,
however, the two kinds of knowledge do not stand in an external relation
ship to one another, as they do for Bergson; rather, both are included in
a complex, differentiated conception of experience.
James' emphasis upon phenomenological description and the enriched
view of psychical reality to which this led have encouraged some com
mentators to portray him as an important predecessor of Husserl's philo
sophy.^^ As the reference to "organic conditions" shows, however, he
never relinquished the positivist hope of causally relating all psychical
114 James, Principles, vol. 1, esp. pp. 258-59, 265, 278-79.
115 The standard sources for this view are Johannes Linschoten, On the
Way to a Phenomenological Psychology; The Psychology of William James
(1961), (trans. Pittsburgh, 1968) and Bruce Wilshire, William James
and Phenomenology: A Study of the 'Principles of Psychology' (Bloomington,
Ind., 1968). James' technique of phenomenological observation and
much of his theory of perception have recently been traced back to
the English philosopher Shadworth Hodgson; cf. Richard High, "Shad-
worth Hodgson and William James' Formulation of Space Perception",
Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 17 (1981), pp. 28-37.
R eproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.
- 144 -
phenomena Co organic events. Mach cited the JamesLange theory of
emotion - that we cry because we shed tears - as a confirmation of his
approach; and he was justified in doing so, despite the important
distinction just noted.* ^ Even so, James found it difficult to recon
cile his empirical parallelism with his ethically derived allegiance
to the doctrine of free will and to its cohort, active mind. He resolv
ed the problem in the Principles by declaring that such issues could
only be decided on philosophical grounds.11^
Yet even after he took the step to metaphysics, important problems
remained. James presented his "radical empiricism" as a generalization
from psychological fact. When he said that "the relations between things
... are just as much matters of direct particular experience, neither
more nor less so, than the things themselves," he was referring at least
in part to the "fringes"; and when he generalized from this that "the parts
of experience hold together from next to next by relations that are them
selves part of experience. The directly apprehended universe needs, in
short, no extraneous transempirical connective support, but possesses in
its own right a concatenated or continuous structure," he could have been

118
talking about the stream of thought. Taken for itself, "radical em
piricism" was clearly an important step beyond both Hume and Bergson, in
particular their shared separation between idea and experience.
117 James, Principles, vol. I, p. 454. For a discussion of this point,

see Lorraine J. Daston, "The Theory of Will versus the Science of
Mind", in Woodward & Ash, eds., The Problematic Science, pp. 88-118.
118 James, The Meaning of Truth (New York. 1909), pp. xii-xiii; cf. Radical
Empiricism (New York, 1912), P- 84.
- 145 -
However, James' treatment of so-called "mental compounds" reveals
the limits of his attempt of reform. The awareness of the alphabet,
for example, is indeed "something new" compared with twenty-six awarenes
ses, each of a separate letter; but it is not something determinatively new.
It is "safer" to treat it "as a twenty-seventh fact, the substance and not
the sum of the twenty-six simpler consciousnesses, and to say that while
under certain physiological conditions they alone are produced, other

119
more complex physiological conditions result in its production instead."
James ventured no guesses here as to what these "physiological conditions"
might be; nor did he explain how postulating a twenty-seventh "awareness"
or the use of the word "substance" for it would solve the problem of its
intrinsic relation to the others. James' pluralistic universe "thus re
mained, in essence, a universe of pluralities. Ralph Barton Perry correct
ly states that radical empiricism "means the habit of explaining wholes
by parts." Though the revision of appearance makes the phenomenal world
seem less inadequate than it did to Hume, or to rationalist philosophy,
the addition of relations was intended as "a correction and amplification,
not as an abandonment of the older tradition."

120
The "concatenated structure" which was James* thought was held
together mainly by the power of his extraordinary personality; naturally
119 James, A Pluralistic Universe (New York, 1909),pp. 188-89.
120 Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (Boston,
1935-1936), vol. 1, pp. 461-62. Not surprisingly, this statement
agrees with. Wolfgang Kohler's assessment of James; cf. Gestalt Psy
chology, rev. ed. (New York, 1949), pp. 198 f. The formulation seems
to me nonetheless apposite.
- 146 -
enough, it influenced others only in piecemeal fashion. In American psy
chology, his emphasis upon the orienting, selective role of practical
interest supported functionalism. At the same time, his desire to make
psychology a natural science and his more extreme statements on the
physiological roots of consciousness helped prepare the way for behav-

121
iorism. In Germany, James' Principles was respected as a rich source
of provocative observations. His friend and colleague Carl Stumpf recom
mended the work to his students for this reason, but advised them to treat
122
its theoretical conclusions with caution. Meanwhile, the notion of
the stream of thought was taken up by two other philosophical reformers,
Wilhelm Dilthey end Edmund Husserl.
Dilthey had good reason to cite James in support of the position
he took in his 1894 essay on "descriptive and analytical psychology."
For both thinkers conscious experience is not a collection of simple
sensations and their corresponding "ideas", but "a structured whole"
combining "the intelligence, the life of instinct and feeling, and acts
of will." This whole is not static but dynamic, a "living, unitary acti-
123
vity within us." Dilthey clearly did not mean brain action here. But
121 For a recent assessment of James' influence in psychology see Wil

liam R. Woodward, "William James' Psychology of Will: Its Revolu
tionary Impact on American Psychology", in Josef Brozek, ed., Explo
rations in the History of American Psychology (Lewisburg, Pa., 1981);
on James and behaviorism see Kurt Danziger, "On the Threshold of the
New Psychology: Situating Wundt and James", in Bringmann & Tweney,
eds., Wundt Studies, pp. 363-79.
122 Langfeld, "Stumpf's 'Introduction to Psychology'" (cited in part one,

n. 123),p. 37. Stumpf was even more skeptical about James' pragmatism;
see his William James nach seinen Briefen (Leipzig, 1927).
123 Dilthey, "Ideen uber eine beschreibende und zergliedemde Psychologie".

(cited in part one ,n. 86), pp. 144, 193-94.
- 147 -
his view of psychical reality was close enough to that of James for
him to cite the letters assertion that we never have the same sensa
tion twice as confirmation of his own contention, originally made in
1887, that the same representation or memory image "can no more return
124
than the same leaf can grow back on a tree the following spring."
The "dominant psychology" cannot grasp this reality, Dilthey
argued, because its representatives persist in "the reduction of all
phenomena of consciousness to elements imagined to be atom-like" and
the "construction" of the psyche from these. Yet the "elements", he
pointed out, are not given in experience, but strictly hypothetical.
Dilthey did not question the achievements of hypothetical thinking in
the natural sciences, and he granted that experimental and quantitative
research had proven useful for the understanding of phenomena "on the
boundary between nature and mental life." He nonethless insisted that
such methods would never help us to grasp the central aspects of that
life, especially "the will [Wollen] which appears so powerfully in our

,,125
consciousness.
When he spoke of "the dominant psychology", Dilthey meant the
ideas which had been dominant in his youth, particularly the "intellect
ual mechanics" (Vorstellungsmechanik) of J.F. Herbart, the associationism
of the Mills and the views of Helmholtz, all of which drew heavily upon
analogies from physics and chemistry. But he included Spencers evolu
tionism as well, calling it "refined materialism". He cited Wundt's prin
ciple of "creative synthesis" and congratulated him, somewhat sardonically,
124 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 176-77. See also Rudolph Makreel, Wilhelm Dilthey;
Philosopher of the Human Sciences (Princeton, 1975), p. 93 & n.
125 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 143-45.
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
- 148 -
for recognizing the dynamic character of mental life and the importance
of will in his more recent work; but he quite rightly refused to exempt
the Leipzig master from the general indictment of hypothetical elements.
He agreed with Wundt, however, in angrily dismissing the sensationalism
of the younger generation. This amounted to the reduction of psychology
to physiology, "a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy." Such thinking
could only lead to "increasing skepticism, a cult of superficial, unfruit
ful fact-gathering [Empirie], and thus the increasing separation of
science from life."
Diltheys alternative to this was a conception of psychology based
upon the concept of structure. He proposed to proceed "from the whole
to the parts"; for in inner experience both individual processes and
their connections to one another and to the whole of mental life are
given. Here the "experienced connection [erlebter Zusmenhang] is pri
mary; the distinguishing of its individual members [Glieder] comes after-

127
ward." Methodologically this meant beginning with an intuitive
description, of this inner connectedness of experience, more systematic
than that carried out by poets but at the same level of sympathetic un
derstanding. In the area of cognition, this would result in ananalytical
classification (Zergliederung) of elementary processes, such as recogni
tion, association, reproduction and comparison. In the areas of feeling,
instinct and will, which are more resistant to such analysis, the data
of intuitive experience would have to be accepted as they are, without
arbitrary classification.
126 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 162, 166-67, 145.
127 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 172, 144.
- 149 -
Wundt, too, considered the introspective survey of conscious
processes to be both an indispensible preliminary to and an important
control upon the results of experimental -work: and Dilthey acknowledged
that in cognition, at least, his terminology was no different from that
of conventional academic psychology. The fundamental difference was
Dilthey*s reversal of methodological priorities. "Experiment and in
duction are everywhere only aids" to effective description and classi
fication; and the explanation of the processes thus derived in terms
of hypothetical components came, if at all, only later. "Descriptive
and analytical psychology ends with hypotheses, while explanatory psycho-

128
logy begins with them." The similarity of this procedure to Stumpf*s
empirical approach is evident.
Somewhat more original were the second and third tasks which Dilthey
assigned to psychology. Viewed analytically, "experienced structure"
lacks a temporal dimension, despite its dynamic character. Dilthey sug
gested that what he called "the form of the psyche" (Gestalt der Seele)
is a product of development, the result of a teleological striving toward
"a final structure of mental life which agrees with its living conditions."
To describe this "final structure*' he used the term "acquired psychical
nexus" (erworbener Seelenzusammenhang). The second task of psychology
would therefore be to trace the development of such nexuses, and the third
to determine their influence upon each of the mental acts or processes

129
discovered in the first, descriptive-analytical stage.
128 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 174-75.
129 Dilthey, "Ideen", p. 176 ff. Cf. pp. 200-37.
- 150 -
In his Introduction to the Human Studies (1883), Dilthey had spoken
of the person as a "psychophysical whole", and distinguished this as the
appropriate unit for the human studies, as opposed to the "atoms" of
the natural sciences. The replacement of "psychophysical wholes" with
"psychical nexuses" indicated that Dilthey had developed a more sophisti
cated appreciation of the complex connectedness of mental life in the
interval. In addition, the idea that these nexuses are acquired meant
that the individual is formed (gestaltet) by his own history, and by
that of his society and culture. The product and goal of Dilthey's psy
chology, then, was not a monadic individual but a socially and cultural
ly formed or organized personality, the shape of which he called "charac
ter", or, in one place, Gestalt.*^
The word Gestalt is often used in German to designate a historical
personage. In this sense it refers both to the person, and subliminal-
ly, to his significance, to the fact that he "cut a figure" on the histo
rical stage. Such figures were the center of Dilthey's research interest
throughout his career; he called biography "the most philosophical form
of history." However, he did not consider each indiviual unique, but

131
referred to "typical people", or to "form of individuality". Though
"all psychical forms from the lowest to the highest, up to the religious
genius" could offer material for such a psychology, it was better to be
gin with "the developed man of culture" (entwickelten Kulturmenschen).
130 Dilthey, "Ideen", pp. 225 f., 232, 23637. For Dilthey's earlier
views, see Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (1883) (Gesammel-
te Schriften, vol. 1, ed. Bernhard Groethuysen, 1922), 4th ed. (Got-
tingen, 1959), e.g. p. 29. Cf. Makreel, Wilhelm Dilthey, pp. 131-32.
131 Dilthey, "Beitrage zum Studium der Individualitat" (1896), in Gesam-

melte Schriften, vol. 5, esp. 241 ff.
- 151 -
Once Che developed connectedness of his personality had been studied
with all the available methods, "then psychology will become a tool
fMM
of the historian, the economist, the politican and theologian ....
Dilthey has long been portrayed as a prophet of the mood of
cultural crisis increasingly sensed by many members of the educated
classes in Germany as they confronted the phenomena of urbanization

133
and industrial capitalism. His polemics against "materialism" and
his centering on "the developed man of culture" are evidence for this
view. However, the sentence just quoted indicates that, in the 1894
essay at least, his explicit purposes were more academic. He sought
a systematic psychology which would provide an adequate foundation
for scholarship in the human studies, without being rigidly naturalistic.
In its broad outlines, this goal was not very different from that implied
by Wundt's classification of the sciences. In both systems, the roles
of natural-scientific - that is, mechanical - explanation and of experi
mental psychology are carefully limited, subordinated to higher, human
istic concerns.
The reaction of the newer experimenting psychologists was predict
able. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Diltheys former colleague in Berlin, publish
ed a vehement rebuttal in the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie in 1896. The
132 Dilthey, "Ideen", p. 157.
133 Cf., e.g., Heinz Lorenz, "Das Bewusstsein der Krise und der Versuch
ihrer tjberwindung bei Wilhelm Dilthey und Graf Yorck von Warten-
burg", Zeitschrift fur Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 11 (1959),
pp. 59-68. See also Hajo Holbora, "Dilthey and the Critique of
Historical Reason", Journal of the History of Ideas, 11 (1950), pp. 93-
118, esp. pp. 93 ff. For more recent discussions, see Georg Iggers,
The German Conception of History (Middletown, Ct., 1968), and Michael
Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey and the Critique of Historical Reason (Chica
go, 1978).
- 152 -
letter he sent to Dilthey with a copy of the article reflects accurately
both the tone and the content of his counterattack. "I hold the whole
thing to be completely mistaken and misleading," he wrote. "I was truly
unprepared to find so much unfairness toward contemporary psychology or
so little clarity about the fact that the people have long been doing
134
exactly what you recommend." Meant here was Dilthey*s call for a psy
chology based on biological, not mechanistic categories. In the article
itself, Ebbinghaus asserted that Dilthey's "descriptive" psychology
was nothing new; experimenting psychologists, too, begin with "the given"
and analyse it into its experiential elements, in order to discover the
laws of their connection. From this perspective Dilthey himself was
guilty of placing hypotheses before facts. Only a vague sense of "con
nectedness", not the structure of consciousness, and certainly not that
of personality, are accessible to introspection. Thus Dilthey's psycho-

135
logy, too, required "construction".
This point was well taken, and Dilthey had to admit it implicitly.
In his reply, he acknowledged that our sense of totality is given only
in "partial experiences" of connectedness. These must be supplemented
by elementary logical operations, such as abstraction and generalization,
before they can become genuine functional connections. He nonetheless
denied that experienced structure is a hypothesis; for these operations,
134 Ebbinghaus to Dilthey, 27 October 1895, in Dilthey, Gesarrmelte Schrif

ten., vol. 5, p. 423.
135 Ebbinghaus, "tiber erklarende und beschreibende Psychologie", Zeit

schrift fur Psychologie, 9 (1896), pp. 161-205, esp. pp. 182 ff.
- 153 -
too, are parts of experience. Thus we do have an immediate, though
vague awareness of a partial experience's place in and value for the

136
whole. Where James spoke of the structure of awareness, Dilthey refer
red to an awareness of structure. Yet both had the same object in mind,
not the external world but consciousness. Despite their evident dif
ferences, both were trying to articulate the way in which the "empirical
self", the person, experien
Unfortunately, in the 1894 essay Dilthey did not explicate in
detail the way in which this awareness of immanent structure operates;
this he would attempt to do in his later analyses of poetic experience.
Nor did he specify just what the method of "understanding" consists
of - whether it was like the intellectual grasp of a written text or
the empathic "co-experiencing" (miterleben) of another's thoughts and

137
feelings, or a mixture of both. In the context of the 1890s, then,
Dilthey seemed unable to offer a clear methodological alternative which
could compete with Bergson's intuitionism, the categorical deductions
of the Neo-Kantians or the apparent precision of the experimentalists.
Both his reply to Ebbinghaus and the essay on the forms of individuali
ty which followed it were rather brief, and he soon laid aside his psy
chological system. His later philosophy was marked by a certain ambiva-
136 Dilthey's reply is in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, pp. 237-40.

Cf. "Ideen", pp. 171, 173, and Makreel, Wilhelm Dilthey, pp. 208-09.
137 For a thorough discussion of the problem of "understanding" in

Dilthey, see Heinz M. Graumann, "Das Verstehen: Versuch einer histo-
risch-kritischen Einleitung in die Phanomenologie des Verstehens",
in Die Psycfaclogie des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, Die europaische Tra
dition, ed. Heinrich Balmer (Zurich, 1976), pp. 159-271, esp.
pp. 170 ff.
- 154 -
lence toward psychology and a greater emphasis upon hexmeneutics, inter
pretation, as the appropriate basis for the human studies. Subsequent
efforts to develop his psychological ideas further bore the imprint of
this change. The most systematic of these was that of Eduard Spranger.
Spranger studied with Dilthey in Berlin at the turn of the cen
tury, but his desire for independence led to a break, and he received
his doctorate under Alois Riehl for a dissertation on the philosophy
of history. His reconciliation with Dilthey shortly before the latter's
death encouraged him to carry out his long-held plan to complete and
systematize the master's descriptive psychology and give it an effective

138
philosophical basis. Finished in outline by 1914, the system was publish
ed in expanded form in 1921 with the provocative title Forms of Life;
Humanistic Psychology and Ethics of Personality. Spranger presented
a typology of six "basic types of individuality: theoretical, economic,
aesthetic, social, political and religious. These he described as forms
of "objective spirit", which came to the fore in specific historical
epochs. Dilthey had employed the concept of "objective spirit" as the

159
foundation for hermeneutics and his classification of "world-views".
138 For Spranger's early career and his relations with Dilthey, see
Spranger, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, Briefe 1904-1963, ed. Hans-
Walter Bahr (Tubingen, 1978), esp. pp. 41 ff., and the editor's
notes, pp. 405-06. For an early statement of his plan to complete
Diltheys psychology, see Spranger to Kathe Hadlich,summer 1904, in
ibid., p . 11.
139 Eduard Spranger, Lebensformen: geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie

und Ethik der PersSnlichkeit (1921), 6th ed. (Leipzig, 1928), p. 119.
For the history of the book, see the editors notes to Spranger,
Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, pp. 411 ff.
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright o w n e r Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
- 155 -
Spranger's influence was greatest during the Weimar period, but
he stated his view of the place such a typological psychology could
have in philosophy, and its relationship to experimental psychology, in
his response to the controversy over the philosopher's petition in 1913.
An important purpose of philosophy, he wrote, is to offer ideas and
ideals suitable for the teaching of the young. To achieve this end
an empirically based, philosophically founded pedagogy is required.
From this point of view, however, "a merely experimental psychologist
has ... only very distant rights to a philosophical professorship.
But whether the mere speculator has any rights in the university at
140
all ... does not even require consideration.-' Spranger*s classi
fication of personality types was thus intended to provide a systematic
support for the training of Gymnasium teachers - a direct fulfillment
of the social role assigned to philosophy in the German universities.
Another who drew upon Diltheys program for psychology in this
period was Karl Jaspers, then a young psychiatrist whose influential
text on general psychopathology first appeared in 1913. Jaspers cri
ticized the then-dominant observational and dassificatory practice of
Emil Kraepelin, which was based in part upon Wundtian experimental tech
niques. He called his approach to observation "phenomenological", thus
indicating his debt to Husserl; but his general term for this aspect
of his method was "static understanding", and the entities to be sym
pathetically observed were Dilthey's structured personalities. The
140 Spranger, "Zum Streit t o die Psychologie", Deutsche Literaturzeitung,

34 (1913), 709-16, on p. 714.
- 156 -
"sick, personality", Jaspers, asserted, must be described for itself, not
classified according to a pre-established schema. This could best be
achieved by combining the physicians attempt to understand, or "empathize"
with the patient with the patients own self-observations, where obtain
able. However, Jaspers did not reject "explanatory psychopathology out
of hand, or attempt to subordinate it to an "understanding" approach,
but asserted that the tiro should supplement one another, since each is
capable of grasping only a portion of mental life. In this methodologic
al pluralism Jaspers was akin to Max Weber, whose influence he later
acknowledged. In 1913, when Jaspers chose for personal reasons to re
main in Heidelberg rather than to seek a career in psychiatry elsewhere,
he was able to transfer from the university clinic to the philosophical
faculty and obtain the right to teach psychology there, with the express
permission and support of Wilhelm Windelband. He remained for decades

141
the only professor to give courses in the field in Heidelberg.
By 1914, then, alternative, personological approaches to psycho
logical thinking, based at least in part on Dilthey's work were beginning
to take hold in German universities. This method went beyond mere de-
/
nunciations of natural-scientific psychology, and promised to combine
empirical anchorage, philosophical rigor and generality and concrete social
141 Karl Jaspers, Allgemeine Psychopathologie (1913), 6th ed. (Berlin,

1953), part 2, e.g., p. 350. A brief treatment of Jaspers metho
dology and his sources is Wolfram Schmitt, "Karl Jaspers und die
Methodenfrage in der Psychiatrie", in W. Janzarik, ed., Psychopatho
logie als Grundlagenwissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 74-82.
For Jaspers' own account of his sources and of his habilitation in
Heidelberg, see his Philosophische Autobiographie (Munich, 1977),
pp. 23 ff.
- 157 -
applicability. Sucb efforts faced two sets of problems. At the level
above the person there was the problem of accounting for the relation
ship of the individual to both history and society. More important for
experimenting psychologists, however, was that such approaches were
notoriously vague at the level "below" the person. Perhaps clarity at
this level was not necessary to achieve the philosophical purposes Dil
they and his followers had in mind. Dilthey, in particular, tended to
operate with the traditional categories of psychology, thought, feeling,
and will, more or less as givens, inquiring more about their relation
ship than about their nature. We have already seen that in the vital
area of cognition he seemed to offer experimenting psychologists neither
clear, new concepts nor usable methods. Some of their number turned
instead to be models of consciousness and of scientific method expounded
by Edmund Husserl.
The work to which they referred when they did this was the Logic
al Investigations, according to one contemporary "perhaps the most in
fluential single work published in philosophy" in the first third of

142
this century. Husserl, like his friend and colleague Stumpf, began
his career under the influence of Brentano*s philosophical mission.
He hoped that careful descriptions of the act of counting would help
him to solve fundamental problems in the philosophy of mathematics,

143
his original field. However, sharp criticism from logicans like Gott
142 Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich, ed., tfeerwegs Geschichte der Philo-

sophie, vol. 5 (Berlin, 1923), p. 512.
143 Husserl, "Reminiscences of Franz Brentano", in Linda McAlister, ed.,

The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, pp. 47-55, esp. p. 48.
- 158 -
lob Frege ended these hopes. Frege praised Husserls psychological
acumen, but pointed out, among other things, that his approach cannot
deal with large numbers. The validity of the sum 999,999 + 1 surely
cannot be itraced to the experience of counting apples; the same holds

144
for the mathematical significance of concepts like infinity.
In the first volume of the Logical Investigations, entitled
"Prolegomena to Pure Logic", Husserl accepted Freges criticism and
carried it still further. He attacked in broadest terms the doctrines
he called "psychologism" and "anthropologism", the attribution of the
validity of logical propositions to inductions from experience, and
to supposed "natural laws of thinking", respectively. All such think
ing leads inevitably to "naturalism" or "species relativism" (spezifi-
scher Relativismus), he claimed. He attributed the former position to
the Mills, Bain and Wundt, and the latter to Sigwart and Erdmann.
However, it was the "modern Humeans, the critical positivists, who
had brought the issue most clearly into the open:
The fundamental question is whether ideal objects of thought ...

[such as the propositions of arithmetic] are really mere signs
for thought-economically' shortened ways of speaking, which,
reduced to their proper content, resolve themselves into mere
individual experiences, collections of presentations and judg
ments about isolated matters of fact, or whether the idealist
is right when he says that this empiristic theory could perhaps
144 Gottlob Frege, "Dr. E. Husserls Philosophy of Arithmetic;-" in

J. Mohanty, ed., Readings in Edmund Husserls Logical Investiga
tions (The Hague, 1977), pp. 6-21. For an excellent treatment of
Frege's anti-naturalism and its historical background, see Hana
D. Sluga, Gottlob Frege (London, 1980).
145 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 1 (Halle, 1900), e.g. chap.

4, para. 22, 9, chap. 7, esp. pp. 124-25. All quotations are from
the first edition, and are translated by me.
- 159 -
be stated as a foggy generality but cannot really be thought

through, that every statement has a claim to meaning [Sinn]
and validity, and that every attempt to reduce these ideal
unities to real individualities is inevitably involved in ab
surdity .... 146
Put as tendentiously as this, and given the use of the term "pure
logic" in the title, there seemed to be little doubt that Husserl intend
ed to side with the idealists. Instead, he subscribed to the relation
between psychology and epistemology propounded by Stumpf. According to
this view, "logical concepts as valid units of thought must have their
origin in concrete intuition; they must have grown up by abstraction
on the basis of certain experiences." The only way to "radically overcome"
psychologism was thus not to ignore psychology, as the Neo-Kantians did,
but to examine more closely than even Kant had done the character of
"logical experiences", the experiences we have when we think. This is
what Husserl meant when he said that "phenomenology is descriptive psy-

i. .
chology. 147
The prototypes of these "logical experiences" are the "meaning-
giving acts" characteristic of perception in general. "Experienced
sensation," Husserl asserted,
is besouled [beseelt] by a certain act character, a certain

grasping [Auffassen] or meaning [Meinung] ... the content of
sensation yields, so to speak, an analogical building material
for the content of the object which is presented through it:
thus we speak on the one hand of sensed, on the other of per
ceived colors, extensions, intensities, etc. ... The evenly
distributed coloring of a globe which we see, we have not sensed.
146 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, p. 188.
147 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. vol. 2 (1901), pp. 7-8. Husserl

states that his use of the word "psychologist" is the same as Stumpfs
in vol. 1, p. 52, n. 1.
148 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, pp. 75-76.
- 160 -
Husserl meant this act of "meaning" and its reference to an object when
he spoke of the intentionality of consciousness. Thus far, there is
little difference between Husserl's psychology and that of Brentano.
His innovation was to assert the psychological primacy of the "meaning
experience, of perception over sensation. Failure to recognize this was,
in his view, the fundamental error in Hume's account of experience, and
thus of the "modem Humeans" as well.
In the second logical investigation, devoted primarily to the pro
blem of abstraction, Husserl accused Hume of ignoring the difference be
tween what he called "the appearing [erscheinende] object", for example
a smooth, white globe with its uniform coloring, and its "appearance"
(Erscheinung), "its idea1 and the complex of sensations in it." The
object as it is "meant" in consciousness is something essentially different
from a complex of sensations, and "we may not impute . to this object any
natural-scientific or metaphysical 'transcendence"'. Instead we must ac
cept it as it appears in intuition. An object can appear in various ways,
show various "sides" of itself according to the interests of the ob
server. Nonetheless we have it with evident, or nearly evident certain
ty:
That which lies in the intention of an intuition [Anschauung],

which I mean to grasp, imagine or phantasize in perception, is
to a great extent removed from all dispute. I can delude myself
about the existence of an object of perception, but not about
whether I perceive it as determined in such and such a way,
and that it is in the meaning [Meinung] of this perception not
a totally different object, e.g. a pine tree and not a June bug.
This evidence in determinative description, or in the identi
fication and differentiation of intentional objects does indeed
have its limits, but it is true and real evidence. Without this
the much-praised evidence of inner perception, with which it is
- 161 -
customarily confused, would be simply useless. 149
Husserl called these "experiences of significance" (Bedeutungs-
erlebnisse), because, to put it perhaps too simply, the objects which
we have in our acts of "meaning" mean something to us. This form of
psychological realism seems similar to that which we encountered in
James, and Husserl credited the American philosopher with helping him
to liberate himself from "psychologism". However, he rejected James
"fringes" of meaning because, he said, they required a "bearer" (Tra-
ger) and were thus remnants of the old substance concept, "which no one
takes seriously any longer."*^ Meaning does not have to be ascribed
to the "fringes" of experience, in Husserls view, because it is the
essence of experience.
Husserl achieved the required transition from perception to "pure
logic" by applying this version of the intentional model to what he
called "the experience of truth." This is "the agreement ... between
the experienced sense of a statement and the experienced state of af
fairs [Sachverhaltl", in which "an ideal object is experienced in a
real act" and we "see" or have insight into its truth. ^ "We know what
meaning is ... in so far as we complete its sense [Sinn vollziehen]," he
had said about the act of perceptual "meaning". "Completing the sense"
of a proposition means that in so far as a proposition "makes sense", we
can speak of its truth for us. This is so even, or especially, for pro-
149 Husserl,Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, pp. 193-94, 196.
150 Husserl,Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, pp. 198, 206, n. 2.
151 Husserl,Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, pp. 189-90.
- 162 -
positions about fictitious or nonexistent entitites. The truth, of the
statement "Pegasus does not exist" is as evident to us, on this account,
as that of the statement "I see a round, smooth globe". Thus the vali
dity of such statements is guaranteed, even though there is no presenta
tional content, no "real" object involved. Husserl acknowledged that
his views were similar to the "theory of objects" which Alexius Meinong
152
was developing at just this time.
Meinong called the objects of such propositions "objectives";
Stumpf. as we have seen, referred to "states of affairs". Brentano re
jected these "objects" as fictitious entities, but his students used the
techniques of thinking they had learned from him to establish a third
realm beyond the physical and the psychical, which Stumpf called "eidology".
Instead of relating the structure of experience to that of the person, as
Dilthey did, these reformers of rationalism coupled the structure of
cognition with that of propositions. The key question in logic and the
theory of knowledge now became not "how can we know?" but "how can we
formulate?" Especially in the hands of Bertrand Russell, this shift to
what has been called logical realism marked an important movement in Euro
pean thought, a step on the way to the reform of analytical philosophy
later in the century.
However, the implicit , and soon very explicit formalism of this
approach led to a deep tension between logic and psychology, despite the
wish of Husserl, Meinong and Stumpf to retain the links between them.
For all his emphasis on conscious activity and the primacy of perception,
152 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, p. 200. Meinongs theory

will be discussed further in section seven of this part.
- 163 -
Husserl had not given up elementary sensations. In fact, he required
them as foils to or analogical building blocks for the perceptions, even
when there was no evidence of their presence in consciousness. Though he
did not give up the idea that the validity of logical propositions is
rooted in experience, this "pure logic" turned out to have very little
to do with psychological fact.
This tension was reflected clearly in Husserl's third logical
investigation, on the theory of whole and part. In this discussion Husserl
made use of two key concepts. The first of these was that of "moment".
Stumpf, as we have seen, spoke of color and extension as "partial con
tents" of experienced states of affairs - in a sense, as parts of a
whole. Husserl suggested that Stumpf was not talking about separable
parts of an object here, but about interrelated aspects of experience.
Using language drawn from Brentano, Husserl proposed to call these
aspects "moments" of intuition. The use of this concept was animportant
innovation, a way of combining descriptive phenomenology and pure logic
without reducing one to the other. The experience of "this red", for
example, can thus be described as a unified act, while the red patch which
is the object of the experience can be broken up arbitrarily into "pieces"
(Stucke) for purposes of logical analysis. Since the "moments" mist: be
supplied by sense-data, Husserl seemed to have avoided talking about a

153
free-floating thought disengaged from reality.
Husserl had already used the concept of "figural moment" in his
153 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, esp. pp. 227 ff. For a
useful discussion of the concept of "moment", see R. Sokolowski,
"The Logic of Parts and Wholes in Husserl's Investigations", in
Mohanty, ed., Readings, esp. pp. 100 ff.
- 164 -
Philosophy of Arithmetic to describe the essential feature of intuitions
in which the apprehension of sensory contents and their subsumption
under a concept seem to occur in a single act, when we speak, for example,
154
of a heap of apples or a swarm of birds. In the second logical in
vestigation, already cited, Husserl generalized this usage to perception
in general, speaking of the color or form (Gestalt) "moments of the
experience of objects. In the third investigation, he generalized the
concept still further, employing the term "moment of unity" at the sug
gestion of Alois Riehl as an a priori designation for this class of ex
periences. With this Husserl began to leave the psychological realm;
for if the objects of experience are given in unified acts of intuition,
it is not immediately clear how such acts can have "moments" of them-
, 155
selves.
The shift became clearer when Husserl developed an _a priori clas
sification of part-whole concepts on the basic of another concept, that
of "unity of foundation". Here, too, he could easily have meant a psycho
logical act. In the second investigation, the percept produced by the
act of "meaning" was described as being "founded" or built up upon the
sensations which are the basis or material of the act. Here, however,
Husserl's use of the term is more static, like the idea of a building
which rests upon a foundation, or, more exactly, is built up on a "found
ation" of bricks and mortar. Thus, to use one of his examples, when we
see a group of stars drawn on a piece of paper, we are presented with a
154 Husserl, Philosophic der Arithmetik (1891), chap. 11; cf. Marvin
Farber, The Foundation of Phenomenology, 3rd ed. (Albany, N.Y., 1968),
pp. 45 ff.
155 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, pp. 198, 230 ff.
- 165 -
"hierarchy of foundations" in which points found the lines, the lines
found the individual figures, and finally the figures found the collec
tion or group. Logically speaking, the same kind of relationship holds
for the red patch and its logically analysed components. On this con
ception, only the unity of intuition gives the whole its reality; "in
reality nothing else exists but the aggregate [Inbegriff] of the pieces."
This has nothing more to do with psychological reality. Had this been
an empirical statement, Husserl could not have implied that we see a
collection of lines and a group of stars in the same way. According to
his own theory of perception, perhaps we "sense" the lines, though even
this is not certain; but we "see" the group of stars, whether we sense the
lines or not. Perhaps this is what Max Wertheimer meant when he wrote
in a brief note that Husserl "does not pay sufficient attention to onto
,.156
logy.'
The persistence of such tensions by no means prevented psycholo
gists, experimenting and otherwise, from drawing a number of important
lessons from Husserls work. His arguments against "psychologism" gave
them a clear idea of the limitations of older psychologies, without
denying the legitimacy of psychological investigation as such. In fact,
he had provided psychology and logic with a common method, and shown how
it could be put to work to achieve challenging results in both fields.
156 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, pp. 268 ff., esp. pp. 274,
278. Wertheimer s undated note is in his private papers, held by
Michael Wertheimer in Boulder, Colorado. Circumstantial evidence
supports the conclusion that it was written before 1910. After
that date Wertheimer's notes are made increasingly in a mixture
of symbolic scripts. This note, however, is written out in words.
- 166 -
When he said that "phenomenology is descriptive psychology", he hastened
to add that such a psychology could not be the same as that of the ex
perimentalists. Phenomenological description should be "presuppositionless",
excluding all theories about the cause or origin of the experiences in
question. But precisely this requirement r-makes it suitable for research
in many fields. "Pure description is merely a preliminary step for theory,
but not in itself theory. Thus one and the same sphere of pure description
can aid in the preparation of very different disciplines." Husserl acknow
ledged that his own work was "limited by the interest of the critique of
knowledge," but he had left the door wide open for the use of his obser
vational procedure as a data base in psychology.
We may recall that this was both the theoretical basis upon which
Carl Stumpf constructed his classification of the sciences and the method
which he had used in his psychological research from the beginning. David
Katz made the connection with the institutional situation of experimenting
psychologists explicit when he later said that to him, "phenomenology, as
advocated at that time by Edmund Husserl, seemed to be the best connection

158
between philosophy and psychology." We may conclude from his work on
color that Katz specifically meant the epistemological and methodological
support provided by Husserl's "evidence of determinative description."
If this was a misunderstanding, then Husserl himself was partly
responsible for it. In his Gottingen lectures of 1905 on the phenomenology
of time consciousness, for example, he presented a far more sophisticated
view than that of Bergson's undifferentiated flow of duree. In Husserl's
157 Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, pp. 16, 18.
158 Katz, "Autobiography", p. 194.
- 167 -
version, the "moment in which we are conscious of "now" is in no sense
punctiform, but is rather one end of a continuous curve, or "moment", of
"then"which extends into the present; this he called "retroception".
When we expect something to follow the present, this curve is supplement
ed by an anticipatory curve, or "moment", of "proception". This is why
we can recognize and follow a melody as soon as it starts, without wait
ing to hear each of the notes. This construction was fully in accord with
James' notion of the stream of thought, and to some extent also with recent
experiments by William Stern on the "psychological present" and the conscious- ;

159
ness of change, all of which Husserl explicitly cited. These lectures
were not published at the time; widely cited, however, were dissertations
written under Husserl in Gottingen, especially the work of Wilhelm Schapp
on color and Alfred Brunswig on comparison. Schapp's work, in particular,
is notable here for his assertion that such qualities as color, form (Ge
stalt) and movement are immediately given in perception, as means of pre-

160
senting "the thing itself." Much of this work could very easily be
understood as highly sophisticated descriptive psychology, though it lacked
experimental support.
Nonetheless, Husserl and his students insisted that the status of
their results was fundamentally different from that of the experimenta
lists' work. They were sure that their efforts yielded certain evidence
about the nature of consciousness as such, while experimental procedures
159 Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness, ed. Martin

Heidegger (1928), trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington, Ind., 1964),
esp. pp. 44 ff.
160 Alfred Brunswig, Das Vergleichen und die Relationserkenntnis (Leipzig

& Berlin, 1910); Wilhelm Schapp, Beitrage zur Phanomenologie der Wahr-
nehmung (Gottingen, 1910), pp. 17 f., 114 ff. Cf. Spiegelberg, Pheno
menology, pp. 54 f.
- 168 -
only provided provisional laws about the range of variation of certain
conscious experiences under given conditions. Hence the apodictic tone of
assertions like Schapp's, above. In any case, Husserl repeatedly made
it clear that he did not regard even this kind of observation as an end
in itself, but only as support for "pure logic". To remove all doubt,
he retracted his designation of phenomenology as "descriptive psychology"

161
as early as 1904. Between 1906 and 1907, according to Husserl scholars,
he finally came to recognize the need for a "transcendental phenomenology",
a conceptual framework for his philosophical approach which would distin
guish it from both experimental psychology and from Dilthey's later philo
sophy of "world views", thus overcoming the danger of relativism once and
for all:
Naturalists and historicists fight about Weltanschauung, and

yet both are at work on different sides to misinterpret ideas
as facts and to transform all reality, all life into an incom
prehensible, idealess confusion of 'facts'. The superstitution
of the fact is common to them all ... There is only one remedy
for these and all similar evils: a scientific critique and in
addition a radical science, rising from below, based on sure
foundations, and progressing according to the most rigorous
methods ~ the philosophical science for which we speak here.^ 2
By this Husserl meant nothing less than a science of reason, assembled
over generations by the patient work of "a research community"working
with the methods he had developed.
161 Farber, Foundation, pp. 183, 199. Cf. Husserl's clarification of

his aims in "A Reply to a Critic of My Refutation of Logical Psy
chologism" - (1903), in Mohanty, Readings, pp. 33-42.
162 Husserl, "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft" (cited in part one,

n. 145), trans. in Lauer, Husserl, pp. 141-42. On the date of
Husserl's transition to transcendental phenomenology, see Spiegelberg,
The Phenomenological Movement, vol. 1, pp. 119 ff.
- 169 -
Despite Husserl's reference to research communities and commula-
tive knowledge, experimenting psychologists, Stumpf included, did not
follow him along this road. However, it was not so easy as in other
cases to dismiss this form of "science" as yet another ascent into idea
listic "conceptual poetry", in Karl Lamprecht's words. By this time,
"the revolution of subjectivity", as one philosopher has called it, had
had its effect in the natural sciences, as well. Many thoughtful natur
al scientists had begun to wonder about the sense in which their claim
to provide secure, certain knowledge of reality was valid, and about
the extendability of that claim to all forms of reality.
5. The Identity of Science: Debates in Physics and Biology
The third quarter of the nineteenth century is often depicted as
an age of orthodoxy in physics, and not without reason. The elaboration
of the energy principle, along with many other supporting discoveries,
seemed to confirm the widely-held view that mechanistic physics had already
provided or would soon be able to provide a comprehensive, orderly expla-

163
nation for all natural phenomena. We have already encountered examples
of this confidence in the writings of Helmholtz and Wundt. As Max Planck
acknowledged in his inaugural speech to the Prussian Academy of Sciences,
however, "a halt, a certain sobering" had set in by the 1890s. Fundamental
innovations had been carried out in physics "without much consideration for
163 Lawrence Badash, "The Completeness of Nineteenth Century Science",

Isis, 63 (1972), pp. 48-58.
- 170 -
164
the mechanical nature of the processes concerned."
The most important of these innovations was the field theory of
James Clerk Maxwell. In the preface to his Treatise on Electricity
and Magnetism, Maxwell compared the methods of current mathematical phy
sics, which proceeded from the motions of individual particles, to those
of Faraday, which began with the "whole", that is the field of forces
acting upon the particles, and clearly stated his preference for Faradays
method. Actually, Maxwell qualified Faradays holism by depicting field
action as occurring only at contiguous points of the field. By doing
this he hoped to preserve the consistency of his equations with Newtonian
mechanics; but in order to do this achieve that end, he was forced to
sacrifice another key Newtonian principle, that of action at a distance.
It took a great deal of time to accept such implications; but to later
generations it was clear that the idea that fields of force have an inde
pendent existence was a first step away from the assumption that the
world consists of pieces of matter from which forces emanate. As Planck
later said, field theory threatened to divide physics into two realms, one
of "corpuscles" and one of "continua".
164 Max Planck, "Antrittsrede" (1894), in Physikalische Abhandlungen

(Braunschweig, 1958), vol. 3, pp. 1-2, 3. For a detailed treatment
of these developments, see Martin J. KLein, "Mechanical Explanation
at the End of the Nineteenth Century", Centaurus, 17 (1972), pp. 58-
82.
165 James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (Oxford,

1873), vol. 1, pp. x-xi^ff.; William Berkson, Fields of Force (New
York, 1974), chap. 6, esp. pp. 148 ff.; cf. pp. 175, 188.
166 Planck, "James Clerk Maxwell in seiner Bedeutung fur die theoreti-
sche Physik in Deutschland" (1931), in Physikalische Abhandlungen,
vol. 3, p. 352.
- 171 -
The problem of "corpuscles and continua" was also posed by two
other related theoretical developments of the period, the elaboration
of the second law of thermodynamics and work on the kinetic theory of
gases. The second law stated, in essence, that the energy of physical
systems tends to dissipate over time. In Plancks words, this meant that
processes in nature tend to be unidirectional and, on the whole, irre
versible, so that nature has a "preference" for one state over another.
J. Willard Gibbs specified this by saying that the tendency was toward a
state of maximum entropy, or stable equilibrium.*^ Rudolf Clausius,
the originator of the entropy principle, formulated its implications
somewhat more alarmingly; the idea that the total entropy of the universe
can only increase meant that a "heat death", the end of all motion, was
inevitable. Such ideas supported the pessimistic outlook of a variety

168
of European and American intellectuals, from .Baudelaire to Henry Adams.
More troubling to physicists, however, was the recognition that irrever
sibility was inconsistent with the energy principle, which had been
derived for reversible processes.
Equally disturbing were the conclusions Ludwig Boltzmann drew from
his work on the kinetic theory. He was able to predict the behavior of
gases in a closed container, but only by making a variety of radical as
sumptions, for example that the boundaries of the atoms involved were
167 Planck, Eight Lectures in Theoretical Physics, trans. A.P. Wills

(New York, 1915), pp. 14 ff., 21.
168 Stephen Brush, "Thermodynamics in History", Graduate Journal, 7

(1967), pp. 411-565.
- 172 -
flexible to a certain extent, not rigid as prescribed by Newtonian me
chanics. Even then only the relative probability of macroscopic states
could be calculated; and this was a function of the number of micro
scopic configurations corresponding to them, not of the motions of in
dividual atoms or mass points. Like Maxwell's equations, Boltzmann's
statistical mechanics marked an important step away from Newtonian think
ing, in particular from the procedure of accounting for macro-states by
calculating the motions of their smallest parts. However, the assumption
of randomness which made that step necessary - that the elements involved
behave independently of one another - meant that, at the micro-level at
least, entropy was "a measure of disorder", as one commentator has put
169
it. This seemed to contradict the interpretations of the second law
just described; equilibrium, after all, is an ordered state. Planck
later tried to resolve the issue by saying that one presupposed the other:
... it is not the atomic distribution, but rather the hypothesis

of elementary disorder, which forms the real kernal of the prin
ciple of increase of entropy and, therefore, the preliminary
condition for the existence of entropy. Without elementary dis
order there is neither entropy nor irreversible process.*70
Such a notion was not only difficult for laymen to understand. The idea
of two levels of physical reality, each with its own set of laws, raised
serious issues for any notion of absolute determinism in nature.
The 1880s and 1890s, however, were the heyday of phenomenological
physics, and Boltzmann was most strongly attacked in those years because
169 For a detailed account of Boltzmann's work, see Stephen Brush, The
Kind of Motion We Call Heat (Amsterdam, 1976), esp. vol. 1, pp. 80 ff.,
chap 6.
170 Planck, Eight Lectures, p. 50.
- 173 -
he had assumed the existence of such metaphysical entities as atoms at
all. In response to these criticisms, Boltzmann argued consistently for
the primacy of mathematics over observability as a standard of physical
theorizing. In one essay he addressed Mach's work directly. He had
been impressed by Mach's criticism of atoms as rigid bodies with impenetrable
boundaries, and had used it in his work; but this did not mean that the
concept itself was useless. In fact, Mach had postulated atoms of his
own, "sensations", and no user of differential equations could do other
wise; for "the first precondition" of that procedureis to "think of a
finite number. " T h u s Boltzmann saved the concept of the atom for future
subatomic physics, but in doing so he accepted a pragmatic interpretation
of physical concepts. Atoms were not metaphysical reality but a metho
dological requirement, the usefulness of which could be decided only when
the theories which presupposed them were confirmed or disconfirmed by ex
periment.
It was here that Boltzmann's views coincided with those of other
physicists and philosophers who were beginning to develop a conception
of the relation of physical theory and reality different from that of
Mach. Heinrich Hertz took an important step in this direction with his
assertion that Maxwells electromagnetic theory of light was nothing
but the system of Maxwell's differential equations. When consequences
from these have been deduced and verified by experiment, we have all
the proof we need of the theory's validity. In 1894 Hertz expanded this
claim into a general description of scientific procedure:
171 Ludwig Boltzmann, "Die Unentbehrlichkeit der Atomistik in der Natur-

wissenschaft,:" in Populare Schriften (Leipzig, 1905), p. 144. For
a discussion of these debates, see Brush, Heat, vol. 1, pp. 90 ff.
- 174 -
We set up subjective pictures or symbols of the external objects,

and of such a type that their intellectually necessary consequen
ces are invariably symbols again of the necessary consequences
in nature of the objects pictured ... The symbols of which we
speak are our ideas of things; with these objects they have one
essential conformity, which lies in fulfillment of the practical
demand we have mentioned above. But it is not necessary to their
purpose that they have any further sort of resemblance to things.
In fact we do not even know and have no way of discovering whether
our ideas correspond with objects in any other way than just this
one fundamental relationship.172
In a sense, this prescription was consistent with Mach's philoso
phy of science. For Mach, too, physical theories are symbol systems, that
is, systems of differential equations; both men accept the consequences
of post-Kantian epistemology and deny that we have direct knowledge of
"substances" like the ether. The difference is in the way these symbol
systems are derived. For Mach, as we have seen, physical laws are no more
than convenient summaries of "tables of appearances". In principle, then,
each step in the development of a physical theory is traceable to a spe
cific individual experience, or set of sense data. Facts, it is true,
are "extended and enriched" by conceptual treatment; but in the end "in
vestigation here only reaches by a roundabout way what is immediately pre-

173
sented to intuitive cognition." Hertz also acknowledged that our "ideas
of things" are derived from "the totality of past experience", but they
are products of abstraction and generalization, not inductive summation
from that experience. Not every element of a theoretical system must be
172 Heinrich Hertz, Die Prinzipien der Mechanik in neuem Zusamrnenhanpp

dargestellt (Leipzig, 1894), pp. 1-2. Cf. Cassirer, The Problem
of Knowledge, pp. 104-05.
- 175 -
directly connected to a sense impression or even be a functional connection
of appearances. Theories can be developed deductively by mathematical
transformations alone; empirical verification is required only for an

174
entire system of theoretical propositions. This emphasis on the free
play of thought in the development of scientific hypotheses was continued
and extended by philosophers of science like Henri Poincare, Pierre Duhem,
Emile Meyerson and others.
Max Planck joined this movement with a massive attack on Machs
philosophy of science in an address to the Assembly of German Natural
Scientists and Physicians in 1907. Planck's early work was influenced
in part by Mach. In an 1882 paper, for example, he advocated the conti
nuity principle in thermodynamics as a method against Boltzmanns atomism,
pointing out that the phenomena of evaporation, melting and sublimation
could be explained without molecular hypotheses. After he was called to
a professorship in Berlin in 1889, however, he became better acquainted
with statistical methods while preparing his predecessor Kirchhoffs lec
tures for publication. He used these methods in the late 1890s to arrive
at an explanation for black body radiation; this was the quantum theory,
for which he is best known. By 1907 Einstein and others had begun to
draw revolutionary conclusions from the quantum hypothesis. However, al
though his own experience with statistical methods had given him a higher
opinion of Boltzmanns work, Planck did not accept the corpuscular revolu
tion or the special theory of relativity immediately. Instead he continued
to hope for a "unified world picture" which would someday bring together
174 Cassirer, Problem of Knowledge, p. 106.
- 176 -
the apparently divided realms of physics.
If this were to happen at all, Planck now asserted, it could
only be achieved "by emancipating the system from its anthropomorphous
elements, in particular from specific sense impressions."*^ He ad
mitted that Boltzmann's ideas in particular seemed to work against the
goal of unity by positing two kinds of physical law, dynamic and sta-.
tistical. Nevertheless, the overall effect was a greater unification
of physical knowledge; thus Mach's narrow conception of "economy" stood
in the way of progress. Of course it is not possible to eliminate the
idiosyncrasies of individual scientists from physics, but to recognize
this is not to say that physical laws can only be convenient summaries
of their sensations. Abstraction begins with the measuring process it
self; we can calculate the weight of atoms and of the moon without being
able to set either on the scales. Taken seriously, Mach's skepticism
"would bring all science to a halt."*^
Planck claimed to understand the "disenchantment" with the cur
rent parlous state of mechanics which lay behind the popularity of Mach's
view. But this retreat to "anthropomorphism" fails to recognize the
175 On Plancks early work and the development of quantum theory, see
Brush, Heat, vol. 1, pp. 99 ff. and Planck, "Wissenschaftliche
Selbstbiographie," in Physikalische Abhandlungen, vol. 3, pp. 374-
401. On his resistance to Einsteins explanation of the photo
electric effect and - at first - to the special theory of relativi
ty, see Stanley Goldberg, "Max Plancks Philosophy of Nature and
his Elaboration of the Special Theory of Relativity", Historical
Studies in the Physical Sciences, 7 (1976), pp. 125-60.
176 Planck, "The Unity of the Physical World-Picture" (1909), trans.

Ann Toulmin, in Stephen Toulmin, ed., Physical Reality (New York,
1970), p. 6.
177 Planck, "Unity", pp. 17, 24-26.
- 177 -
goal for which all scientists strive, to discover precisely that which
is "invariant" in nature,
which can never be effaced by any revolution, either in nature

or in the human mind. This constant element, independent of
every human (and indeed every intellectual) individuality, is
what we call *the Real * ... if we take pains to exercise the
necessary caution, and read nothing more into the word 'world'
than this ideal picture of the future, we can replace the
term ['world picture *] by the word 'world'.178
This was the core of what has since been called Planck's "rational
realism". The hope he expressed in these words was rooted in deeply
held religious and ethical convictions, as well as in the faith that
the laws of nature correspond to the laws of thought. In later years he
would say that Spinoza was the philosopher who expressed his views best. 179
His and Hertzs emphasis upon the deductive derivation and logical co
herence of world-pictures found sympathy with Neo-Kantians like Ernst
Cassirer. After citing Planck at length in his book Substance and Func
tion, he said "Planck can justly characterize his view as 'realistic'.
This 'realism', however, is not the opposite but the correlate of a

180
rightly understood logical idealism."
The break with phenomenalistic physics seemed complete. As Mach
pointed out in his reply to Planck, however, their opposition was in a
number of respects more apparent than real. He once said in a lecture
that the purpose of science was to develop "the most complete, consistent,
178 Planck, "Unity", pp. 25, 27.
179 Armin Hermann, Max Planck (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1973), p. 98.
For further discussions of Planck's religious and ethical views in
their relation to his physics, see the essay by Goldberg, cited
above, n. 175.
180 Cassirer, Substance and Function, p. 308.
- 178 -
cohesive ... world picture, a wcrld picture of the greatest possible

181
stability, in order to "limit disturbances of practical life."
Planck clearly would have rejected only the second part of this state
ment, not the first. In 1909, Mach claimed that his "economy of
thought" was no different from Planck's "unified world picture", and
denied that intellectual economy need be confined solely to utilitarian
ends. Yet he also said that world-pictures are "socially maintained"
fictions which change over time and are designed "to ease intellectual
discomfort."*^
At the very least, there was a significant difference in tone here,
dictated by the different ontological status the two men assigned to
their respective theory-frames. For both Planck and Mach, scientific
theories are means to an end, and must therefore be judged by their suc
cess. The criteria by which theories are considered likely to succeed
are also similar; the simplest, most comprehensive theory is the best.
For Planck, however, the end was metaphysical, and the means formal and
primarily deductive, or hypothetico-deductive; he had nothing against

183
"'economy* in a higher sense," he said. Since the achievement of that
unity lay in the future, Planck also had to assume a teleological view
of history. For Mach, the end was pragmatic, and the means largely in-
181 Mach, Popular Scientific Lectures, p. 366, quoted in Blackmore,

Ernst Mach, pp. 69-70.
182 Mach, "The Guiding Principles of My Scientific Theory of Knowledge

and Its Reception by My Contemporaries", trans. Ann Toulmin, in
Stephen Toulmin, ed., Physical Reality, pp. 28-43, here pp. 33, 35.
183 Planck, "Unity", p. 26.
- 179 -
ductive, at least in principle; and his view of history was corresponding
ly relativistic.
Planck's lecture received wide publicity throughout the scientific
world. Perhaps it even added to Mach's fame among younger scientists;
certainly Planck's attack, especially its tone, brought him a reputation

184
for both scientific and cultural conservatism which he never lost. It
must be remembered, however, that the reorientation in physics was only
beginning, and its proper interpretation was by no means a simple matter,
then or later. The implications of the controversy for experimenting
psychologists were also unclear. On the one hand, the Newtonian assump
tions about matter that had once served as analogies for mind seemed to
be losing their hold, even for matter. On the other hand, the neoposi
tivist model of scientific procedure from which much of the newer psycho
logy drew its claims to scientific legitimacy was being questioned, pre
cisely in the discipline in which it seemed most secure. This was a
message which had to be taken seriously, especially by Berlin psychologists
who studied physics with Planck, as Wolfgang Kohler did. The Machian
model and its concommitant epistemology had never been unconditionally ac
cepted in Berlin. Stuff's methodological pluralism, with its common phe
nomenological grounding for all disciplines, seemed a secure way of keep
ing psychology out of trouble. We have seen, however, that this strate
gy had its price - the positing of two realities, physical and psychologic
al, and thus a certain ambivalence about the use of natural-scientific
methods in psychology.
184 For a summary of the controversy and its reception, see Blackmore,
Ernst Mach, pp. 217-27.
- 180 -
Precisely this tension between the unity of natural-scientific me
thod and the apparent multiplicity of realities in nature was at issue in
biology, as well. However, the gradual loosening of mechanism in favor
of a more complex and interactive view of natural phenomena seems to
have entered biological thinking only slowly. The vast majority of Ger
man biologists were trained in physiology, and the commitment to mechanistic
categories which supported the establishment of that discipline persisted
throughout the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most famous, or notorious,
biomechanist of his time was Jacques Loeb. His extension of heliotropism
to animals in 1890 rested upon the assumption that all biological phenomena
are ultimately reducible to chemical, and these in turn to physical inter
actions. Though he emigrated to the United States in 1891, Loeb stayed
in touch with developments in his homeland, publishing frequently in Ger-

185
man.
With the rediscovery of Mendel's research in genetics,the publica
tion of Pavlov's experiments on conditioned reflexes and the success of
his own work on artificial parthenogenesis after the turn of the century,
Loeb was entitled to think that his star was on the rise. He presented
his credo to a wider audience at the first international congress of
the Monist League in Hamburg in 1911, in a paper entitled "The Mechanistic
Conception of Life"; the German title, Das Leben, was even more dogmatic.
He brooked no compromise with philosophers' claims that the adaptation of
185 For a valuable orientation on the state of biological thinking in

this period and on Loeb's thought and career, see Donald Fleming's
"Introduction" to his edition of Jacques Loeb, The Mechanistic Con
ception of Life (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. viixli.
- 181 -
organisms to their environment proved the irreducibility of animate
to inanimate nature, for his tropisms were also cases of adaptation:
If the structure and the mechanism of the atoms were known to-
us we should probably also get an insight into a world of
wonderful harmonies and apparent adaptations of the parts to the
whole .... Nobody doubts that the durable chemical elements are
only the products of blind forces. There is no reason for con
ceiving otherwise the durable systems in living nature.186
These remarks were made only shortly before the development of the Bohr
atom. More important here, however, is that the same structure of in
ference, from reflex-like movements to supposed "blind forces" in the
organism, would be employed in the establishment of behaviorism by John
B. Watson, who studied with Loeb. In Germany, however, Loebs mechanism
was strongly criticized, as was Darwinian natural selection, and for some
of the same reasons. Allusions to "blind forces", it was said, might
deal with the dynamics of organisms* movements, but not with the develop-
187
ment of organic form.
Precisely this is what Wilhelm Roux proposed to provide in his
"developmental mechanics": a "causal morphology of organisms:; interpret
ed as the reduction of "the origination, maintenance and involution [Ruck-

188
bildung] of these forms ... to movements of parts." Roux had studied
186 Loeb, Mechanistic Conception, pp. 27-28.
187 For a discussion of these criticisms, see Cassirer, Problem of Know

ledge, esp. pp. 194, 207.
188 Wilhelm Roux, introduction to vol. 1 of Archiv fur Entwicklungsmecha-

nik (1894), quoted in Garland Allen, The Life Sciences in the Twen
tieth Century, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, England, 1978), p. 34. The in
formation in this and the next paragraph is taken from Allen, esp.
pp. 25 ff., 29 ff., and from Fleming, "Introduction", esp. pp. xxiv-
xxv; cf. Cassirer, Problem of Knowledge, esp. pp. 180 ff.
- 182 -
with Ernst Haeckel, and was attracted by Haeckel's materialist monism;
but he vigorously criticized Haeckels dogmatic proclamation of the "bio-
genetic law" as a hindrance to investigation. For him, developmental
mechanics was a method, a source of hypothetical models to be tested
by what he called "analytical experiments". He shared this emphasis
upon and style of experimentation with Loeb, though Loeb was more dogma
tic about his mechanism. Roux's "mosaic theory" described development
as the "self-differentiation" of "hereditary potentialities", with ir
reversible functional differentiation among the cells. This hypothesis
was supported in part by Roux's own experiments at the marine biological
station in Naples. Roux killed one of the first two cleavage cells in
a frog's egg; as expected, the surviving cell gave rise to only half of
a normal embryo.
After completing his doctorate under Haeckel in 1888, Hans Driesch
made his way to the Naples station to work with Roux. In 1891, he an
nounced a spectacularly different result. Working with a different or
ganism, the sea urchin Pluteus, he separated the blastomeres from their
partners without killing any by shaking them apart in sea water; each
developed into 3 normal, though somewhat smaller than average adult.
Even crushing a section under a glass plate, thus confusing the structures
completely, did not prevent the development of anomalous but functioning
individuals. Loeb obtained comparable results, also with sea urchin eggs,
in 1893, and also concluded that every part of the living matter in a
fertilized egg can result in a normal embryo. Loeb apparently saw no
threat to his mechanistic position in these results, but Driesch clearly
thought differently. His first formulations, in 1893 and 1894, were cautious
- 183 -
enough. Although each developmental stage could be explained mechanistical
ly, he said, the ordered sequence of stages leading from blastula to adult
could not. This he attributed to an obscure "formation drive" (Bildungs-
trieb). Publicly attacked by Du Bois-Reymond and privately declared ripe
for an asylum by Haeckel, Driesch retreated somewhat in 1896, but by 1899
his "change of heart" was complete. In his "proof of vitalistic events"
in that year, he subsumed all organisms under a single teleological schema,
in which the goal is the whole organism. This developmental potential
could be realized in two ways. In "determined equipotential systems",
potential was divided among the parts of the system; in "harmonious equi
potential systems", like his sea urchins, it was not. The existence of
"harmonious equipotential systems", he declared, was proof of "dynamic

_ i i
teleologyit xn
nature.
..
*89
Little of this would be significant for us if Drieschs own devel
opment had ended there, but it did not. First he applied the concept of
"harmonious equipotential systems" to phenomena of organic self-regulation,
such as the regeneration of organs and restoration of function. He then
searched for a more general teleological principle to legitimate the
expansion of his ideas beyond biology. He found it in that central con
cept of German Romanticism, Seele, which he took from Eduard von Hartmanns
190
critique of recent psychology, published in 1901. He integrated this
189 For the emergence of Drieschs vitalism, see Frederick B. Churchill,

"From Machine-Theory to Entelechy: Two Studies in Developmental Teleo-
logy", Journal of the History of Biology, 2 (1969), pp. 65-86, and
Horst Heinz Freyhofer, "The Vitalism of Hans Driesch", Ph.D. Disser
tation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979, University Micro
films Order No. 79-15659, chaps. 1-2.
190 Eduard von Hartmann, Die moderne Psychologie (Leipzig, 1901).
- 184 -
term into his vocabulary in his book "The Soul as an Elementary Factor
of Nature" (1903). The nature of human activity, he wrote, is not
explicable mechanically. In a physical-chemical system there is a one-
to-one ordering of stimuli and reactions; within the constraints of gi
ven boundary conditions, systems can react only in terms of present
stimuli. In human action, however, the effects of past experience are
"present for me"; this fact, he contended, makes for a "free divisibility
191
and combinability of elements" in a law-like, but not mechanical act.
Driesch illustrated this with cases in which the alteration of
a single stimulus element has a "total effect" (Ganzwirkung). For
example, when someone calls across the street to a friend, "mein Vater
ist schwer erkrankt" (my father is seriously ill), the effect is com
pletely different from that obtained when he says, "dein Vater ist schwer
erkrankt" (your father is seriously ill); yet only one letter of the mes
sage has changed. Taking the opposite case: the message "your father is
dead" produces in a single hearer the same reaction in different languages,
even though all the stimulus elements - i.e., the letters - may be diffe
rent. Today, too, such examples are material for research, particularly
in information theory. For Driesch they were evidence that the brain is
a "harmonious equipotential system with respect to its possible perform
ance'1; "no inorganic system, no machine" could function in this way. He
concluded that psychophysical parallelism must be rejected, and postulated
Seele as the additional factor accounting for the difference. Alternative
ly he suggested the term "psychoid", to allow for the possibility that
191 Hans Driesch, Die Seele als elementarer Naturfaktor (Leipzig, 1903),
pp. 52 ff., 62-63. "
- 185 -
192
there might he more than one such factor per individual.
This transfer of vitalism to psychology touched off a flurry of
controversy in the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, in which a young student
of Benno Erdmann, Erich Becher, first came into prominence. Becher prais
ed Driesch for pointing to the link between vitalism and interactionism,
but criticized his justification for it. Aside from the psychological
"naivete of the formulation that past experiences can be "present for me,"
he said, Driesch had needlessly confused the general principles of phy
sical and chemical events with those of manmade machines. Even in ordinary
machines, he argued, reactions are not determined solely by present sti
mulus conditions and the construction of the reagent, but also by the
effects of earlier stimuli. Even for phonographs, "infinitely many reac
tions are possible" on the basis of the latter two parameters alone; the
"fixed" character of the reaction only "emerges" with the present stimulus.
Becher recognized the importance of "total effects" resulting from a
single stimulus, but pointed out that these, too, can be found in the
world of machines; akeywound toy is an example. On the other side, the
unlimited connectability of stimulus and reaction is characteristic of
any telephone system. On this basis all we can conclude is the existence
of "pre-established harmony", which is little more than parallelism in
disguise. This is clearly an insufficient basis on which to establish

1QO
vitalism, Becher concluded; but "perhaps other reasons may speak for it."
192 Driesch, Seele, pp. 66, 71, 74-76.
193 Erich Becher, "Kritik der Wiederlegung des Parallelismus... durch

Hans Driesch", Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie, 45 (1907), pp. 401-40,
esp. pp. 416-17, 422-23.
- 186 -
This proved to be Bechers typical strategy. In a second article
he cited calorimetric experiments by Max Rubner on animals and a twelve-
year test by W.O. Atwater on humans to show that the law of conservation
of energy "is as proven for besouled [beseelte] organisms as a natural-
scientific fact can be ... the proponents of the interactionist hypothe
sis would do well to recognize the law of conservation of energy fully

,194
and completely. Nor is it of help to speak of a "sum" of physical
and psychical "energies", as proponents of "psychical causality" tended to
do; if one sum is constant, then the other must be, also, and so we have
parallelism again. There are other ways of defending interactionism, Be
cher claimed. He espoused the solution Stumpf had offered in 1896:
a certain nervous process in a certain part of the cortex is

the regular precondition for the occurence of a certain sensa
tion; this emerges as a necessary result alongside the physic
al effects. But this part of the result absorbs no physical
energy, and its relationship to the [physical] conditions can
not be expressed in mathematical concepts and l a w s . 195
Becher called this "the happiest form" of interactionism; here psychical
phenomena are depicted as emergents from physical causes which are in
turn capable of altering physical effects, as in hearing or in acts of
will. These views did not go uncontradicted, as a wordy exchange soon
developed with the Munich philosopher Aloys Muller. The debate was discus
sed in Stumpfs seminar in the summer of 1908, when Wolfgang Kohler and
196
Kurt Koffka were both students in Berlin.
194 Becher, "Das Gesetz der Erhaltung der Energie und die Abnahme einer
Wechselwirkung zwischen Leib und Seele," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie.
46 (1908), pp. 81-122, here pp. 97-98.
195 Stumpf, "Leib und Seele", Dritter internationaler Kongress fur Psycho
logie (Munich, 1896), pp. 12-13, quoted in Becher, "Erhaltung der Ener
gies p. 114.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.
- 187 -
In that year Driesch expounded his vitalism in full detail and
elevated it to the status of a full-blown philosophy in The Science
and Philosophy of the Organism. He retained the arguments in his earlier
work nearly unchanged, but endeavored to circumvent the substantialist
implications of terms like Seele and "psychoid" by making more extensive
use of the term "entelechy", which he had already introduced in 1896
as a substitute for his earlier "formation drive". Here, as well, "en
telechy" is the formative power of the organism, the end for which phy
sical and chemical factors are only the means. This power is itself
neither spatial nor temporal, but "works itself into space" or time -
that is, it manifests itself in its effects. The logical sign of such a
manifestation Driesch called "individuality", the fact that wholeness
is retained despite division into parts: "Is it possible to imagine that
a complex machine, unsymmetrical in the three planes of space, could be
divided hundreds and hundreds of times and still remain intact?" For
Driesch, however, this "individuality" was not a Kantian category of
the understanding. Instead he claimed that we can "see the world, the
world of entelechy, as it is in its immediacy." Entelechy itself can
only be inferred, but its effects are most evident to our own self-obser
vation, particularly in our awareness of acts of will. With this, Driesch
completed the step to psychovitalism which he had begun in 1903; his phi-
197
losophy of nature had become a philosophy of man.
196 Chronik der Friedrich-Wilhelm-'Pniversitat zu Berlin, 22 (1908), pp. 72-

73.
197 Driesch, The Science and Philosophy of the Organi sm (Aberdeen, 1909),
esp. vol. 2, pp. 78, 258, 282 ff. Cf. Freyhofer, "Vitalism", pp. 81 ff.
- 188 -
Driesch's lectures received a mixed reception in both biology and
philosophy. Apparently it was difficult to decide whether this was mysticism,
as many biologists thought, or "critical idealism", as Driesch himself pre
ferred to call it. In some respects Drieschs critique of mechanism was
similar to Bergson's critique of natural science, and it seemed as though
he, too, were trying to overcome the inadequacies he saw by invoking a
different kind of reality. However, though his "entelechy" was compatible
with the elan vital in being only indirectly knowable, he did not speak
of it as a higher reality grounded on intuition, as Bergson did. Instead
it was another aspect of the same reality, qualitatively different from
but in constant interaction with that of physics and chemistry. The idea
that purposive action as a part of nature could be reconciled with at
least a loose form of mechanism was widespread by this time, for example
in the theory of emergent evolution. Thus some biologists, like Herbert
Spencer Jennings, were prepared to see the positive side of Driesch's
critique of mechanism. Whether it was necessary to postulate an un
knowable "entelechy" was another matter. Here it seemed as though Driesch

198
was substituting ontology for investigation.
Philosophers, on the other hand, were not so allergic to ontology.
The similarity of Driesch's ideas to current philosophical reflections
about the mind was obvious - viz. Husserl's reference to perception
as the "besouling" of sensation. Both his critique of mechanism and his
attempt to place his ontological speculations on a secure logical and
epistemological footing assured him of at least a hearing among Neo-Kant-
198 On the reception of Driesch's lectures, see Freyhofer, "Vitalism",

pp. 94 ff., and Cassirer, Problem of Knowledge, p. 197.
- 189 -
ians. Driesch himself was quite aware of the step he had taken toward
philosophy, and drew the consequences. In 1909 he obtained the right
to teach natural philosophy in the natural science faculty of the Uni
versity of Heidelberg, where he had been living as a private scholar.
Two years later he shifted to the philosophical faculty, with the express
approval of the chair-holder, Wilhelm Windelband. The move came pri
marily for career reasons. It was the pragmatic Oswald Rtilpe who point
ed out to him that with the few existing natural science faculties in
German-speaking universities, he would have better chances of advance-

199
ment in the philosophical faculty. Drxesch soon took up Husserl's ideas
and the research results of Kiilpe's Wurzburg school when he worked out
the logical and epistemological implications of his philosophy in greater
detail. Thus, just when Driesch ceased to be interesting for most biolo
gists, he became especially interesting for philosophers and psychologists,
both as a theorist and as a potential competitor for status and position
in the small world of German academia.
The increasingly complicated theoretical and philosophical situa
tion in physics and biology thus presented problems for psychology in more
ways than one. Whatever philosophical viewpoint they chose to accept,
psychologists who were seriously interested in finding a way to reconcile
the claims of philosophy and those of natural science apparently faced a
difficult situation. For if Driesch was right, the life of the mind was
the best evidence for the impossibility of such a reconciliation, at least
on the basis of mechanistic categories. This problematic situation could
199 Driesch, Lebenserinnerungen (Munich, 1951), pp. 142-48.
- 190 -
only be aggravated by the difficulties that were developing in experiment
al psychology itself.
6. The Challenge from Within I: The Problems of Recognition and Thought
In the generation from 1890 to 1910 the situation in scientific
psychology was, in a way, analogous to that of the natural sciences. We
have already seen that we cannot speak of an atomistic-sensualistic ortho
doxy or paradigm here in the sense that we can refer to the dominance
of Newtonian mechanics in physics. As the persistence of teleological
and morphological ideas in biology shows, the lack of an established
paradigm, or the existence of competing paradigms in different sub-fields,
was just as evident in biology, at least in Germany. However, just as me
chanism served as a methodological rallying point for the group around Wil
helm Roux, heuristic elementism united most experimenting psychologists.
From 1890 on, however, issues were raised which put this credo increasing
ly to the test. Ironically, much of the challenge emerged when independent
ly minded observers took Hach's phenomenalism literally, using his own
observations to question the validity of his epistemology and psychology.
This was not wholesale, fundamental criticism of the kind offered by Bergson
or Dilthey, but a set of isolated steps by critical spirits who noticed
anomalies in the given theoretical or descriptive order. The result, at
first, was a proliferation of research problems and partial theories
designed to plug the leaks. The criticism from within contributed in its
way to the dramatic growth in the productivity of scientific psychology
in this generation. The more new phenomena and competing theories, the
more tasks for experimenting psychologists. In the long run, however, this
- 191 -
led, as it apparently did in physics as well, to an impression of hope
less plurality, not of linear progress. Only a few of these problems
can be discussed here. We choose three which were closely related to
one another and also highly relevant to the emergence of Gestalt theory:
recognition, thought and form.
In the 1880s and early 1890s the Danish philosopher Harald Hoff-
ding became involved in a controversy with his countryman Alfred Lehmann,
a student of Wundt, about a phenomenon located, as Hoffding said, "below"
the conventional schema of associationist psychology, "in which a direct
differentiation of several elements is not possible for us," although
we think we have cause to feel "as though several elements are fused."
Examples of this are situations in which we vaguely recognize that we
know a name, but cannot place it. This "familiarity quality" (Bekannt-
heitsqualitat), Hoffding claimed, is basically different from that of new
ness. The difference is as immediate and fundamental as that of pleasure
and displeasure, so basic to associationism.^^ Lehmann and Wundt treat
ed this appearance as an anticipatory expectation prior to the appearance
of a memory image in consciousness. The memory image is then compared
with the current presentation and judged to be similar or different.
Hoffding found the application of this schema to immediate recognition
200 Harald Hoffding, "iiber Wiedererkennen, Association and psychische Ak-

tivitat", Vierteljahresschrift fur wissenschaftliche Ehilosophie, 13
(1889), pp. 420-58; 14 (1890), pp. 27-54, 167-205, 293-316; here
vol. 13, pp. 421-22, 426-27. Cf. Hoffding, Psychologie in TJmris-
sen auf Grundlage der Erfahrung (1882), 5th German ed. (Leipzig,
1914), pp. 172 ff. For a discussion of the controversy with Leh-
nann, see Ingemar Nilsson, "Alfred Lehmann and Psychology as a
Physical Science," in Bringmann & Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, pp. 258-
68.
- 192 -
"thoroughly arbitrary"; if all these processes really occurred, "we
would undoubtedly notice it." Instead "the quality of familiarity
makes itself felt directly and stands there isolated in our conscious-
201
ness, without stimulating the appearance of any presentation."
Apparently we have here something which appears with the immedia
cy of a sensation, but does the intellectual work of a presentation.
We can look at a house, for example, and retain a memory only of an
ornament above a certain window; later we look up, see the ornament,
and immediately say "I know this house".

202 Hoffding hypothesized that
a physiological "disposition" must be established at the time of the
first impression, leaving an "aftereffect" which somehow makes itself
felt when the impression is repeated, but without appearing as an in
dependent element in consciousness. This was consistent with Hoffding's
view of consciousness as a functional unity, which he claimed to have
derived from Lotze. In this view mental life is in a state of "continuous
activity, the results of which are accessible to self-observation only

203
in some outstanding points." It was also consistent with Mach and
Avenarius' empirical parallelism, but such a conjecture only raised
the problem without solving it. At any rate it was clear that this in-
between phenomenon was more than a mere classification problem; the
relations between sensation, perception and memory were involved.
As an example of immediate recognition Hoffding also cited an
observation made by James McKeen Cattell in Wundt's laboratory in 1887,
201 Hoffding, "Wiedererkennen", vol. 13, pp. 431, 442, 446.
202 Hoffding, Psychologie, p. 180.
203 Hoffding, "Wiedererkennen", vol. 13, p. 431; and vol. 14, p. 308.
Cf. Psychologie, pp. 172-73.
- 193 -
that previously experienced "words, even sentences are grasped as tota
lities in consciousness."^^ Benno Erdmann and Raymond Dodge confirmed
that result in their widely-cited experiments on reading. Cattell had
found that briefly presented collections of up to four or five unrelat
ed letters could be retained, while up to three times as many letters
were retained when presented as parts of a word or sentence. Erdmann
and Dodge found the difference to be still larger, a factor of four or
five. Cattell had explained this result by saying that words, being wholes,
are more easily retained. The logician Erdmann saw that this point re
quired clarification. A group of letters, a sentence, a word or even a
single letter are all wholes, he pointed out, only in different senses.
A collection of letters is, in logical terms, "a mere aggregate" (Inbe-
griff), while words are "systematic summations" which possess "associative
meaning-connectedness" (Bedeutungszusammenhang); the latter is "more tight
ly structured" than the former. That is why we call the series of letters
205
"senseless" or "meaningless", in comparison with the word.
But why are these wholes more tightly structured"? To explain
this, Erdmann passed subtly to the border ground between logic and psy
chology. "A letter, for example, is the whole we perceive not only on
the basis of the optical components into which it can be analysed, but
rather as a result of the configuration of these components which is cha
racteristic of it," he stated. This is true of words as well. The word
204 Hoffding, "Wiedererkennen", p. 427.
205 Benno Erdmann and Raymond Dodge, Psychologische Untersuchungen iiber

das Lesenauf experimenteller Grundlage (Halle, 1898), pp. 140 ff.,
esp. p. 148.
- 194 -
"feeling", written vertically from last letter to first, is read letter

206
for letter, but the same word printed normally is not. This was an
excellent demonstration of the immediacy of form perception. For Erd
mann and Dodge, however, it was evidence that not form character alone
was decisive, but "accustomed form character." Word recognition is based
on the "repeated perception of gradually more strongly associated com
plexes of sensations." Whether "printed left to right" is a sensation

207
in the same sense as others, they did not specify.
The importance of Erdmann and Dodges work, especially its poten
tial pedagogical relevance, was recognized quickly, and the results test
ed and extended in numerous investigations. It soon became a challenge
to research technique to determine how far the phenomenon could be stretch
ed. Friedrich Schumann, for example, found that words of up to twenty-
five letters presented with his tachistoscope could be seen clearly and
distinctly in all their parts, though the word seen may not be the same
as the stimulus word, some letters being substituted for the presented
ones. Of twenty-five unrelated letters, on the other hand, only some
at best would be perceived. It seemed difficult to imagine that practice
alone could account for these results. Schumann espoused the "commonly
accepted theory" that "in the act of recognition the images of former per
ceptions of the same object are re-excited, fuse with the sensations and
208
give to the perceptual process its quality of familiarity. * This
206 Erdmann & Dogde, Lesen, p. 161.
207 Erdmann & Dogde, Lesen, p. 149.
208 Friedrich Schumann, "Psychologie des Lesens", in Friedrich Schumann,

ed., Bericht iiber den 2. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie...
1906 (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 153-83, here p. 170.
- 195 -
seemed to be an advance over the complicated series of successive acts
called for in the theory Hoffding had criticized, but the "fusion" or
"assimilation" of sensations and images was no less hypothetical than
the earlier succession of images and judgments had been. Nor was it clear
how this theory could accomodate Hoffding's claim that recognition could
also occur without reproduction. Evidently there was some relationship
between the organization of stimulus "elements" and their association,
recognition and retention; but Schumann's claim for this theory notwith
standing, there was little agreement among psychologists as to the nature
of that relationship, or the nature of the psychological processes behind
it. In 1911 one researcher reported a total of fourteen theories on the

v * 209
subject.
A still more fundamental challenge to associationism came in the
work of Oswald Khlpe and his students on the psychology of thinking.
In his discussion of recognition in his textbook of 1893, Kiilpe recorded
an anomalous observation: one of his subjects "was absolutely incapable
of forming a sensory idea of any colored object," although he recognized
such objects normally. This was enough for Kulpe to join Hoffding in
distinguishing recognition from associative reproduction. He placed this
case in his chapter on "centrally excited sensations", thus implying that
he considered recognition to be explicable physiologically. This was con
sistent with the epistemological views he held at the time. By 1898, how
ever, shortly after he founded the Wurzburg laboratory, he came to believe
that it was essential to science to assume the reality of a self and an
209 D. Katzaroff, "Contribution a 1'etude de la recognition," Archiv de

psychologie, 11 (1911), pp. 2-78.
- 196 -
external world. In that year he conceived a program for the development
of a realistic theory of knowledge based on an experimental psychology

210
of thought. This was the hidden agenda of the so-called "Wurzburg school".
Briefly put, the findings of the Wurzburg experimenters were of two

211
kinds. First of all, they discovered a multiplicity of contents or "in
tervening processes" at work in acts of thought different from the images,
feelings or acts of will called for by classical associationism. In a word
association experiment, for example, one subject reported that the stimulus
word "mustard" released what might be called "a memory for an idiomatic ex
pression" before he answered with the word "seed". To describe these con
tents, Karl Marbe introduced the collective term Bewusstseinslagen, first
translated as "conscious attitudes", later as "dispositions of conscious-

212
ness". To these Narziss Ach added "awarenesses" (Bewusstheiten), which
he defined as "imageless knowledge" that something is the case. Ach acknowledg
ed that such "meaning-contents" were often carried by images, but pointed
to numerous cases in his protocoils where this was not so. In an experiment
with numbers, for example, when subjects were asked to give the subsequent
number and the figure 9 was presented, "first came the awareness, 'I know
213
itT,and only then the visual image of zero." The more they studied these
210 David Lindenfeld, "Oswald Kulpe and the Wurzburg School," Jour. Hist.
Behav. Sci., 14 (1978), pp. 133-34, 136-37.
211 For a detailed discussion of the Wurzburg results, see George Humphrey,
Thinking (New York, 1951), chaps. 2-4.
212 A. Mayer & J. Orth, "Zur qualitativen Untersuchung der Associationen,"

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 26 (1901), pp. 1-13, here p. 6 . Karl Marbe,
Experimentelle Untersuchungen uber das Urteil (Leipzig, 1901).
213 Narziss Ach, tiber die Willenstatigkeit und das Dehken (Gottingen, 1905),
- 197 -
processes, the more such contents these investigators seemed to find.
The example just given points to the second, still more important
kind of results obtained in the Wurzburgers* work, on the purposive, direct
ed character of thinking. Ach and Henry Watt found that the experimenter's
instruction produced a "mental set" (Einstellung) which played a dynamic
role in his subjects thinking independently of reproduction. Kiilpe him
self demonstrated this in experiments on abstraction. He presented a
group of four nonsense syllables, each one in a different color and po
sition, to his subjects for a short time - 1/8 sec. - and asked them to
focus on one specific aspect, e.g. to name the letters, then to tell the
color, then the shape. As expected, the subjects' responses were more
accurate for the aspects they were told to focus upon, regardless of
how often a given letter, color or shape had appeared in consciousness

214
before. Ach then showed that the process could be unconscious. He
told subjects under hypnosis that he would show them two cards with numbers
printed on them, and instructed them to give first the sum, then the dif
ference. This they did in the waking state immediately,even though they
could give little account of what had gone on in their minds in the inter
val. Ach attributed these results, and "the ordered and goal-directed course
chap. 4, p. 206; see also the abr. trans. entitled "Determining Ten
dencies; Awareness," in David Rapaport, comp., Organ fzation and Patho
logy of Thought: Selected Sources (New York, 1951), here p. 31.
214 Henry J. Watt, "Experimental Contribution to a Theory of Thinking,"

(1905), repr. in Jean H. Mandler & George Handler, Thinking: From
Association to Gestalt (New York, 1964), pp. 189-200, esp. p. 193.
Oswald Kiilpe, "Versuche uber Abstraktionen," in Friedrich Schumann,
ed., Bericht uber den 1. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie...
1904 (Leipzig, 1904), p. 61.
- 198 -
of mental events in general", to hypothetical "determining tendencies",
"influences, arising from the goal-presentation and directed toward
the referent-presentation, which determine the course of events so as

215
to accord with the goal-presentation." In experiments on the lifting
of weights, G.E. Muller and Friedrich Schumann had referred to the idea
of "motor set" as early as 1889. Such language was consistent with Darwin
and Spencer's use of the term "attitude" to describe a state of bodily
"readiness", or preparation to act, e.g., in response to danger. In the
work of the Wurzburg school, this language was appropriated for psychologic
al states.^^
Many of these findings, particularly those of Kulpe and Ach just
described, were based on what would today be called behavioral or per
formance data. Their validity could be tested with untrained observers,
and was thus independent of what one thought about the reliability of
introspection. This was not true of the new thought contents. On the
surface the methods employed in Wurzburg to obtain these were no different
from those used elsewhere. The work was usually done with a coterie of
initiated subjects. In Mayer and Orth's experiments, there were four;,
in Buhler's there were six, all of whom were psychologists. Here as else
where, the superiority of the methods over armchair speculation was thought
to lie not in the number of subjects, but in "the systematic use of a
215 Ach, Willenstatigkeit und Denken, pp. 188 f., 192; cf. "Determining
Tendencies; Awareness," in Rapaport, Thought, pp. 17-18, 23.
216 On the "psychologization" of the term "attitude", see Donald Fleming,

"Attitude: The History of a Concept," Perspectives in American History,
1 (1967), pp. 287-365, esp. pp. 301 ff.
- 199 -
217
larger number of internal perceptions, as Marbe once put it. The
data on thought, however, were drawn from a second series of intro
spective reports, in which subjects recounted seriatim the thought con
tents or processes they had experienced during the original experimental
series. Ernst von Aster christened this the method of "experience re
call" (Kundgabe), as opposed to that of simple "description" (Beschrei-

v >218
bung).
The weaknesses of this procedure became evident early, as theoretic
al terms like Bewusstseinslage - or Bsl., as it was soon written - began
to creep into the subjects reports. In Biihler's studies of thought the
tasks were so complex and took so long to solve that the second series
of reports nearly became amonologue. Here is an extreme example:
What view did Herbart share with Hume? - Yes - (23 secs.). First
I thought of the association theory (association' spoken internal
ly). Then I searched for further commonalities. The thought
'presentations are the carriers of psychological life' ('presenta
tions' spoken internally) came. But I thought immediately - this
does not fit. What impressed itself on me then was: reference
to the psychologically real. But with it there was in my con
sciousness: that is precisely in what they differ. Then I gave up.
(The subject adds:) I was conscious throughout that each thought
had a relationship to the task. These relationships unified it all,
so that my thinking was directed by the idea of finding common
characteristics, an idea which then found expression in these
relationships.'
Buhler himself admitted that some of the results obtained in this way could
217 Marbe, Urteil (cited above, n. 212), p. 14.
218 Ernst von Aster, "Die psychologische Bedeutung und experimentelle

Untersuchung von Dehfcvorgangen," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 49
(1908), pp. 56-107. For a full discussion of the methodological
issues involved, see Kurt Danziger, "The History of Introspection
Reconsidered," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 16 (1980), pp. 241-62.
- 200 -
219
be artifacts of the method.
Wilhelm Wundt's assessment was more categorical. In a long po
lemic against Buhler's work in 1907, he called these procedures "pseudo-
experiments" and alleged that "suggestion" was inevitable with them. Buhler
defended himself vigorously, but it soon became clear that there was in
deed a replicability problem in his work, and in that of his colleagues,
as well. The sensationalist experimenter Edward Bradford Titchener set
his Cornell students to work on the problem, and claimed that they found
no such things as imageless thoughts. The "dispositions of consciousness"
he reduced to "attitudinal feels" of various kinds; "Buhler's thought-ele-
ments," he said, "I frankly disbelieve in." To speak here of experienced
"meanings" different from sensations or kinaesthetic images was to commit
what Titchener called the "stimulus error", confusing the description

220
of the stimulus with that of the experience which it evokes. Actual
ly, the issue may have been as much a question of permissable theoretic
al language as of reliable experimental data. One commentator has suggest
ed that the protocols, taken on both sides of the Atlantic "could be inter-
221
changed with little noticeable difference."
219 Karl Buhler, "Tatsachen und Probleme zu einer Psychologie der Denk-
vorgange, II: fiber Gedankenzusammenhange," Archiv fur die gesamfo
Psychologie, 12 (1908), pp. 1-23, here p. 2; cf. abr. trans. entitled
"On Thought Connections," in Rapaport, Thought, here p. 41.
220 Edward B. Titchener, Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of

the Thought-Processes (New York, 1909), esp. pp. 182-83. Cf.
Humphrey, Thinking, pp. 106 ff. See also Fleming, "Attitude", esp.
pp. 304 ff.
221 Mandler and Handler, Thinking, p. 184.
- 201 -
This in turn points to the real problem, the fact that none of
the parties involved seemed able to develop a satisfactory theory of
imageless thoughts. In their eagerness to classify their data - and per
haps, too, because of the method of seriatim recounting - the Wurzburg
experimenters tended to treat the contents and processes they discover
ed as new units alongside the conventionally accepted contents of con-

222
sciousness, rather than treating thought processes as wholes. Buhler,
for example, explicitly characterized his "thoughts" as "content cor
relates" of Ach's determining tendencies. In a way, this was no more
then a continuation of Wundts systematic technique, which also called
for parallel contents and processes.
At the same time, however, the work of Buhler and Messer marks
the introduction of Husserlian terminology, particularly the intentional
model of consciousness, into the Wurzburg vocabulary. "Intentions", in
which "the act of meaning comes to the fore and not what is meant", form-
223
ed the third of Buhlers three classes of "thoughts". Messer took
this still further. In his systematic treatise on sensation and thinking,
he described Husserls act of "intending" as the "imageless [unangchauli-

22^
ches] element" which "gives meaning [Sinn] to the word in consciousness."
Finally, Kiilpe himself made the idea that imageless thoughts were direct
ed to objects a cornerstone of his realistic epistemology: "for us the
222 For contemporary criticism of "thought psychology" based on this

point, see Cassirer, Substance and Function, p. 345.
223 Buhler, "Tatsachen und Probleme za einer Psychologie der Denkvorgan

ge, I: iiber Gedanken", Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 9 (1907),
pp. 297-365, here pp. 346 ff.
224 August Messer, Empfindung und Denken (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 5, 80, 91.
- 202 -
fundamental characteristic of thinking is referring [meinen], meaning aim
ing at something." His concept of "realization", the constant construc
tion of reality in consciousness, is similar to Husserl's conception
of the never-completed "fulfillment" of objects described at the end of
the Logical Investigations, which he renamed "constitution" in his later
writings.
Yet even these more dynamic conceptions did not do full justice
to the phenomena. Husserl's "meaning" experience, too, were processes
which existed alongside or worked upon presumably constant sensory material;
but Kiilpe's own findings in his work on abstraction seemed to show that
the task could alter subjects' reports of what they saw. Did this mean
that the sensations changed, or only that the task redirected the subjects'
attention to other sensations, while the others remained unnoticed? This
in turn raised the issue of the relation of all this to the "corporeal
individual". Titchener, citing an earlier paper by von Kries, attributed
Ach's determining tendencies to "dispositional adjustments" in the cor
tex, as distinguished from the "connective adjustments" which presumably
underlay association. He could thus acknowledge "that consciousness may
be guided and controlled by extraconscious, physiological factors," and
that "this extraconscious determination may lead to novel conscious con
nections, which would not have been effected by the mere play of repro-
226
ductive tendencies." But this meant excluding the directedness of
225 Kulpe, Die Realisierung, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1912), p. 10. Cf. Husserl,
Logische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, p. 714; Ideas, pp. 138, 199 f.
226 Titchener, Lectures, pp. 33-34. Cf. von Kries, "fiber die Natur gewis-
ser mit den psychischen Vorgangen verkniipften Gehirnzustande," Zeit
schrift fur Psychologie, 8 (1895), pp. 1-33.
- 203 -
thinking from, psychology. Messer, on the other hand, restricted psycho
logy to "the description of conscious experiences", claiming that we can-

227
not know what brain events correspond to acts of thought. This, too,
seemed to exclude determining tendencies from psychology, since they
were not always conscious.
Despite this uncertain situation, Kiilpe did not hesitate to use
the Wurzburg results to proclaim the death of sensationalism, particular
ly to attack Machfs epistemology and philosophy of science. His first
point was the same as Plancks. Science often gives us "an extension",
not a mere reproduction of experience; thus it cannot be based on a phe
nomenology of perception, no matter how carefully assembled. "The values
of Ohm's law are not sensations," though sensations may be an essential
aid to their determination. Moreover - and this was the key point - Mach's
epistemology fails because sensations are not all there are in conscious
ness:
Modem psychology teaches that sensations are products of scienti

fic analysis ....We do not discover elementary contents, such
as simple colors or brightnesses, tones or noises, elements of
any kind in our investigation of what is given in consciousness ...
but contents of consciousness, of perception and memory, of feel
ing, phantasy and understanding alongside actions and functions
which determined or direct themselves to such contents.
Kiilpe was equally explicit about the significance of his school's
results for the status of psychology. With the shift of interest from sen
sation to thought, he asserted, the positive relation of psychology to
227 Messer, Empfindung und Denken, p. 12.
228 Kiilpe, Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in Deutschland (1902), 6 th ed.

(Leipzig, 1914), pp. 24 ff., 29-30; cf. Erkenntnistheorie und flatur-
wissenschaft (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 18 ff.
- 204 -
the human studies (Geisteswissenschaften) was assured:
Although one once could use sensations and images to construct

a mosaic of mental life and an automatic lawfulness of the comming
and going of conscious elements, such a simplification and de
pendence upon chemical analogies has now lost its footing ...
The association psychology, as founded by Hume, has ended its
solitary reign ....There are still psychologists who have not
risen above this standpoint. Their psychology can rightly be
accused of unreality, of moving in an abstract region where it
neither seeks nor finds entry into full experience. These are
the psychologists who offer stones instead of bread to those
representatives of the human studies who are asking for psycho
logical support ....229
Thus, with imageless thought Kiilpe and his followers tried to establish
a fruitful middle position in philosophy between phenomenalism and ideal
ism, without forsaking experimental psychology. Because thought, too,
was accessible to scientific study, there was no need to choose between

230
sensationalist "psychologism" and Neo-Kantian "pure logic".
We have already learned the answer which Husserl and the Neo-
Kantians gave to these high hopes. Associationists like G.E. Muller were
understandably even more skeptical. In his own thorough study of idea
tion, Muller severely criticized the Wurzburg work for its methodological
weaknesses, and argued that their results could just as easily be ex
plained by associationist psychology. However, Muller could not conceal
the fact that his associationism was no longer as strict as it had once
been. In 1900, he and Alfons Pilzecker had postulated that presentations
229 Kiilpe, "tJber die Bedeutung der moderaen Denkpsychologie" (1912), in

Vorlesungen iiber Psychologie, ed. Karl Buhler, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1922),
pp. 311-12; cf. 'The Modem Psychology of Thinking", trans.in Mandler
and Mandler, Thinking, pp. 212-13. I have altered the translation
slightly after consulting the original.
230 Cf. Lindenfeld, "Oswald Kulpe", p. 137.
- 205 -
have a "perserverating" tendency to remain for a time in consciousness,

231
increasing in intensity before fading away. Muller now called this
an elaboration of a principle discovered by association psychology de
cades ago". Not only the frequency and distribution of repetitions de
termines which presentation will come into consciousness, but also the
"degree of readiness" transmitted by past experiences to the presentations

232
connected with one of the competing trains of thought.
Narziss Ach had already credited Muller with being "the first to
shatter the view of association psychology that the train of ideas is
governed soley by associative reproduction tendencies"; but he contended
that "perserverating tendencies" were not sufficient to explain determin
ing effects of the instruction in his examples, especially the production
of completely novel behavior, Muller now included one of Ach's terms in
his vocabulary, saying that "even according to pure association psychology
a goal presentation directed toward something novel must be at
231 G.E. Muller and A. Pilzecker, "Experimentelle Beitrage zur Lehre

vom Gedachtnis", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, Erganzungsband 1
(1900).
232 Muller, "Zur Analyse der Gedachtnistatigkeit und des Vorstellungs-

verlaufes, III",Zeitschrift fur Bsychologie, Erganzungsband 8
(1913), pp. 488-89; Hiller attributed this view to Alexander Bain.
Bain had said that "some second association coming in aid of one
to give that one a preponderance is the condition of our reviving
anything." Specifically, if the appearance of an object evokes
only certain associations and not all of the possible ones which
could be linked with it, this is so because "some motive additional
to the force of the acquired adhesions is actually needed to recover
the trains. Not only must the mind be disengaged from other trains,
there must also be a positive stimulus, a second starting point,
to individualize and determine the bent of the suggesting power to
one or other of the many associative ideas." Bain, The Senses and
the Intellect (1855), 3rd ed. (London, 1868), pp. 561-62.
- 206 -
233
work." Clearly, "goal presentations", like "thoughts" and "awarenes
ses, were more complex units of consciousness than the sensations and
presentations of traditional associationism. In all these cases, and
in that of recognition as well, awareness of a larger structure was
involved. Thus, both the results of the Wurzburg investigators and Mil
ler's quietly revised associationism lent additional depth and urgency
to a problem which was being discussed on its own account - the problem
of form.
7. The Challenge From Within II: The Problem of Form and its Implications
Both the problem of form and its connection with the problem of
whole and part are as old as philosophy. When Aristotle said that "the
whole is prior to the parts,'.' he meant to make a statement about the re
lationship of "form" - the essence, or substance of things - and its
"matter", or attributes, not a statement about the intelligibility of

234
things. For post-Kantian thought as for English empiricism, the dis
cussion shifted from being to experience; the issue was whether to ascribe
our experience of forms, or wholes, to sensation or to intellect. For
Kant, the unification of "impressions" is achieved first by "a survey of
the manifold and then its summation," which he called "the synthesis of
233 Muller, ibid.; Ach, Willenstatigkeit und Denken, pp. 187 f., 224;
cf. "Determinig Tendencies; Awareness," in Rapaport, Thought,
pp. 15-16.
234 Paul A. Bogard, "Heaps or Wholes: Aristotle's Explanation of Com

pound Bodies", Isis, 70 (1979), pp. 11-30, esp. p. 13.
- 207 -
235
apprehension." For Herbart, connections of the sensory manifold are
"an immediate achievement of the unity of the mind," based on the repro-
236
duction of fused presentations. It was in opposition to Herbart that
Mach, in a lecture of 1865, attributed the perception of both space
and form to "muscular feelings" similar to the kinaesthetic sensations
Wundt invoked to explain depth. In support of this view he offered the
analysis of the problem which, in other hands, would become the basis for
237
the discussion which later developed.
According to Herbart*s theory, Mach argued, it is impossible to
understand how similar, but differently colored shapes, for example, are
thought to be the same; for in Herbart*s psychology, "only simultaneous
and similar" ideas can call one another into consciousness. This demands
"qualitatively equal presentations [Vorstellungen] in both series. The
colors are different. Therefore there must be equal presentations connect
ed with the colors but independent of them." These are the "muscular
feelings of the eye", which are the same for both shapes. To make this
idea plausible Mach offered cases of the effect of position on the per
ception of objects; the letters d, b, p and q, for example, represent
the same figure in different positions, but are nonetheless seen different-
238
ly, beause the muscular apparatus of the eye is asymmetrical. These
235 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781), ed. Raymund Schmidt
(1924; repr. Leipzig, 1979), pp. 174 f.
236 Johann Friedrich Herbart, Lehrbuch der Psychologie (1817), 3rd ed.
(Leipzig, 1887), p. 49.
237 Mach, "Vom raumlichen Sehen" (1865), in Popularwissenschaftliche Vor-

lesungen, pp. 117-23.
238 Mach, "Sehen", in Vorlesungen, pp. 119-20.
- 208 -
were also the observations with which he had tried to convince a scien
tific audience in 1861 that the space of sensation and chat of geometry
are fundamentally different. As he later recalled, he was not taken se
riously at the time; the question."'was accounted not only superflous- but
239
even ludicrous.*" The theory of "muscular feelings" fared little
better. Wundt*s version was roundly rejected by scientists of various
persuasions, including Helmholtz and James.
The "more general remark" Mach made at the end of his 1865 lecture
had a different fate. That certain qualitatively different series of pre
sentations are nonetheless recognized as similar or the same is "a quite
common appearance in psychology." The situation just described for
colored letters also obtains for melodies: "We can choose the melodies
in such a way that not even two partial tones in them are the same. And
yet we recognize the melodies as the same." In fact we recognize similar
melodies more easily than the keys, and similar rhythms more easily than
the tempi in which they are played. Thus, not only similarity of visual-
form, but "all abstractions" must be based on presentations (Vorstellungen)
of special quality. "But where is psychology supposed to find all these
qualities?" he asked. "No problem! They will all be found, just as
the muscular sensations for the theory of space. The organism is rich
enough for the time being to fulfill the needs of psychology in this regard,
and it is time to take seriously the 'bodily resonance' of which psychology
so readily speaks.
In The Analysis of Sensations, Mach was understandably more cautious
239 Mach, Analysis, p. 109, n. 1.
240 Mach, "Sehen", pp. 121-22.
- 209 -
about "muscular feelings." Now it was only "a priori extremely probable
that sensations of space are connected in some way with the motor appa-
241
ratus of the eye." A more important change was the elimination of
the word Vorstellung and its replacement with the word "sensation",
in keeping with the philosophy of the work. However, he retained the
idea of additional qualia, giving the same example as in 1865:
In examining two figures which are alike but differently color

ed <or_-example, two letters of the same size and shape, but
of different colors), we recognize their sameness of form at
the first glance, in spite of the difference of color-sensa-
tion. The sight-perception, therefore, must contain some
identical sensation-components. These are the space-sensa-
tions - which are the same in the two cases.^42
In the case of geometrical figures like the square and the diamond, al
ready alluded to above, Mach now referred to "sensations of direction"
and postulated the requirement of homologous position. When this is
not given, intellectual effort is required to make "the affinity of
form" apparent. Again, as before, Mach tried to extend this observation
to melodies:
If two series of tones be begun at two different points on the

scale, but be made to maintain throughout the same ratios of
vibration, we recognize in both the same melody by a mere
act of sensation, just as readily and immediately as we
recognize in two geometrically similar figures, similarly
situated, the same form.243
Here, however, he could invoke neither "space sensations" nor eye move
ments; nor did he specify how the notion of "sensations of direction"
might be applicable in more than a metaphorical sense.
241 Mach,Analysis,p. 110.
242 Mach,Analysis,pp. 105 ff.
243 Mach, Analysis,p. 285.
- 210 -
This is where Christian von Ehrenfels entered the discussion.
In his essay "On Gestalt Qualities", published like Hoffdings on re
cognition in Avenarius* journal, he accepted Machs observations as
empirical facts but rejected Machs reductionist interpretation. An
evenly colored surface, such as a red patch, is immediately perceived as
similar to other such surfaces, although there are no indicators of
direction or any "dividing walls" among its supposed "elements." In
the case of melody, too, Mach had used the concept of sensation in an
unusually wide sense; in the conventional use of the term, it is absurd
to think of sensations as extended in time. Thus it is necessary, Eh
renfels argued, to decide what such forms "are in themselves" (an sich
seien), whether they are merely summations of sensory elements or whether
ideation (Vorstellung) "brings more" to their perception. With the
question put in this way, the answer was clear. A melody played in the
keys of C major and F major has no two notes in common, but is none
theless recognized quite easily as the same. The notes of the C major
melody, played in the same key and rhythm but in a different sequence,
are not recognized as the same. "The similarity of melodies and figures
when their tonal and spatidLbases [Grundlagen] are generally different"
must be something other than the similarity of the elements. "These
forms must therefore be something different from the sum of the elements."
This "something different" was "Gestalt quality".^^
Given such a definition, Ehrenfels was able to discover Gestalt
qualities in nearly every corner of mental life, from literary forms
244 Christian von Ehrenfels, "fiber Gestaltqualitaten" (1890), reprinted

in Ferdinand Weihhandl, ed., Gestalthaftes Sehen (Darmstadt, 1960),
pp. 11-43, here pp. 12, 17, 18-19.
- 211 -
to relations in general. The judgment that red is not green, for example,
is also based upon, but not reducible to its elements. Thus "most of
the concepts with which we operate" have Gestalt qualities, as do "the
greater part of our associations." However, Ehrenfels accepted Mach's
contention that Gestalt qualities are not results of abstraction or
comparison, but are immediately given, or"produced in the perceiving
consciousness", with the notes themselves. Acceptance of this idea,
he asserted, would do much to explain and justify "the shaping power of

* *
fantasy consciousness.
xn 245
Ehrenfels' concluding praise of fantasy and his attempt to apply
the concept of Gestalt quality so widely were consistent with his per
sonality; for he was a poet and a devoted Wagnerian as well as a philo
sopher. He wrote the article on Gestalt qualities in Berlin, where he
was working with the recently founded Freie Buhne, a literary organ and
theater group whose members included Gerhart Hauptmann. The group was
intended in part to promote naturalist drama, but Ehrenfels represented
a different view. "As important as conscientious observation may be for
certain branches of art," he wrote, "its life-element is the form-giving

o/a.
and ordering fantasy." In 1892 he became the journal's guarantor,
hoping to make it an organ of "practical philosophy" and of antisocialistic
politics. When he informed his teacher Alexius Meinong of this, he con
fessed that he had lost interest in specialized issues of psychological
245 Ehrenfels, "t3ber Gestaltqualitaten", pp. 27 ff., 35-36, 40-42.
246 Ehrenfels, "Wahrheit und Irrtum im Naturalismus", Freie Buhne, 2

(1891), p. 739, quoted in Lindenfeld, Transformation of Positivism
(cited above, n. 3), p. 116.
- 212 -
analysis. "It is becoming more indifferent to me personally whether
there is such a thing as intensity of ideation or not"; instead philosophy
had become "the search for a world-view."
Meinong, himself a musician and composer, shared the aesthetic
inclination of his student and friend. But he was above all an academic
philosopher, and he saw the essay on Gestalt qualities in this light.
Meinong's philosophical project was to reconcile empiricism and rationalism.
In his criticism of Mach, already mentioned, and in his earlier "Hume
Studies" he tried to show that the intellectual activities described by
Locke, especially abstraction and comparison, yield truths which are evi
dent to "inner perception" in Brentano's sense. He thus hoped to retain

248
an empiricist account of experience while avoiding Hume's skepticism.
Ehrenfels' essay, which was heavily indebted to notes from his lectures,
forced him to clarify his views on a key aspect of his philosophy, the
status of relations. In a long review of it for the newly-founded Zeit-
schrift fur Psychologie in 1891, he concluded that Ehrenfels and Mach had
uncovered an undeniable fact; but he rejected the term "Gestalt quality",
because its use made it too easy to suspect that "extra-psychological
realities" were involved, so that acoustics would now have to deal with
things called melodies in addition to tones. As an alternative he pointed
to Ehrenfels' use of the term "basis" (Grundlage), or "fundament", and
suggested that Gestalt qualities be called "founded contents" (fundierte
247 Ehrenfels to Meinong, 11 June 1892, in Philosophenbriefe aus der wis-

senschaftlichen Korrespondenz von Alexius Meinong, ed. Rudolf Kindinger
(Graz, 1965), pp. 78-79.
248 Bor a discussion of Meinong's early philosophical development, see

Lindenfeld, Transformation, esp. pp. 92 ff.
- 213 -
Inhalte). He could thus take account of the fact that both Gestalt qua
lities and relations are logically dependent upon their members, without
having to equate them. By attributing "founded contents" strictly to
"complexions", as he called collections of elements, he could also preserve
the idea that intellectual activity was necessary for higher qualities, but
distinguish one kind from another according to the degree of activity re-
. . 249
qurred.
Despite his emphasis on intellectual activity, Meinong had not
claimed that intellectual acts could alter the relations on which they
are "founded". In his article "On fusion and Analysis" (1892), the young
Munich philosopher-psychologist Hans Cornelius soon drew more radical
conclusions from related facts. His subject was the tonal fusion describ
ed by Stumpf in 1890, the year of Ehrenfels' essay. Stumpf called fusion
"that relation of two contents, especially sensory contents, in which they

.250
make not a mere sum, but a xdiole.' However, he also stated that in
a musical chord, for example, the individual tones remain unchanged in
consciousness, but are not noticed as such, though we can analyse them
out when we redirect our attention to them. Cornelius, following James'
criticism, denied this and maintained that attention could indeed trans-
- _ 251
form sensory contents.
249 Meinong, "Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen" (1891),

in Meinong, Gesamtausgabe, eds. Rudolf Haller, et al. (Graz, 1968 ff.),
vol. 1, pp. 279-304, esp. pp. 287, 294-95.
250 Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, vol. 2, p. 228.
251 Hans Cornelius, "fiber Verschmelzung und Analyse", Vierteljahresschrift

fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 16 (1892), pp. 404-46; 17 (1893),
pp. 30-75, esp. vol. 16, p. 417. Cf. Psychologie als Erfahrungswissen-
schaft, p . 165.
- 214 -
Cornelius referred to Meinong only indirectly, but the issue was
clearly related to his concerns, and he felt called upon the reply in
1893. Here he took essentially Stumpf1s position. The notes and in
tervals of a chord are perfectly distinct, as are the sensations caused
by them. They simply appear to be merged because we do not direct our
judgment to them. However, he was forced to make a concession to Corne
lius' approach in the case of overtones. Once we have analysed out
the overtones of which a single tone is composed, the resulting series is
qualitatively different from the simple tone we had at the beginning.
This meant, however, that Meinong's concept of "founded content" was in-
252
appropriate; for its use assumed the constancy of the "fundaments".
Now, a musical chord and a melody are clearly different kinds of
complex wholes; the tones in a melody maintain their identity in a way that
the notes in a chord do not. Nonetheless, both are made up of tones and
intervals, and yet the whole which results is different from these alone.
Thus the awkward problems raised by Ehrenfels' essay applied, in one way
or another, to both. Psychologically speaking, Gestalt qualities were
evidently neither sensations nor judgments; according to the conventional
ly accepted categories of the day, they were thus neither physical nor
psychical. Logically speaking, the things which have Gestalt qualities
are not mere collections of properties; as one philosopher has put it,
253
they are "structures", not "sets". Apparently both philosophy's way
252 Meinong, "Beitrage zur Theorie der psychischen Analyse" (1893), in

Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1, pp. 305-96, esp. 316 ff., 347 ff. Cf. Linden-
feld, Transformation, pp. 118-19.
253 Reinhardt Grossmann, "Structures versus Sets: The Philosophical

Background of Gestalt Psychology, critica: revista hispanoamericana
de filosofia, 9 (1977), pp. 3-21.
- 215 -
of talking about concepts and psychologys way of talking about reality
were involved here. The discussion which followed reflected this fact, as
categories from both descriptive and genetic psychology, logic and episte-
mology became inextricably intertwined. This was only to be expected,
since the psychologists involved were for the most part philosophers,
for whom psychology was a means to an end. The issue was so important
that nearly every major figure on the scene had something to say about it.
Clearly, only a sampling of the more significant positions can be offer-

a here.
ed *. 254
Among the first to deal with the issue in a systematic context was
Cornelius. In his text of 1897, already mentioned, he generalized his op
position to atomistic psychology and repeated his critique of "unnoticed
sensations." His endorsement of Ehrenfels Gestalt qualities was consist
ent with this outlook. He called them "attributes" (Merkmale) of complexes
which do not belong to the elements, and attributed them to "relations of
similarity" recognized in perceptual judgments. In this way he could link
them to the complexes, as Meinong did, and also say that a lesser degree
of activity is required to experience them - recognition, not relation -
without calling them "contents". Cornelius also imputed this status to
feeling - another break with traditional psychology, in which feelings were
viewed as elements which could be associated the same way as ideas. In an
elaboration of his views in 1900, he went so far as to propose that psy-

255
chology should begin with such attributes of relation, not with elements.
254 For a brief survey of the discussion, see Theo Herrmann, "Ganzheits-
psychologie und Gestalttheorie" (cited above, n. 60), pp. 578 ff.
255 Cornelius, Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft, pp. 70 ff.; "iiber

Gestaltqualitaten , Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 22 (1900), esp. pp.
114 ff., 117 ff.
- 216 -
His student Felix Krueger took up this doctrine, especially the extension
to feeling, under the name "complex qualities", and applied it in his
studies of hearing after the turn of the century, polemicizing even more
vehemently than Cornelius against Stumpf's "hypostasizing of elements",
"mistaking physical for psychological concepts" and "rigid concept of sen-

..256
satron.
Cornelius' senior colleague in Munich, Theodor Lipps, reversed the
younger mans position, again in 1900. For him Gestalt qualities were the
products of unconscious psychical processes of "apperception", which he
ultimately traced to an ego which projects itself into the world. Feelings
are the symptomatic effects of these processes, not characteristic features
of complexes per se. The perception of a melody is thus "the apperceptive
unification of a manifold of tones ... We change the tones into it with-

257
out changing anything about the tones or the intervals." In his dis
sertation on Gestalt qualities, Lipps student Georg Anschutz called them
"products of the thinking self" and went so far as to doubt "whether I simply
find Gestalt qualities before me ... whether they are there for me with-
258
out my own object-directed activity." Lipps claimed to base his psycho
logy on Hume and Kant, but the nearness of his views to Fichtes subjective
256 Felix Krueger, "Die Theorie der Konsonanz, I: Eine Psychologische

Auseinandersetzung vomehmlich mit C. Stumpf und Th. Lipps", Psycho-
logische Studien, 1 (1906), pp. 305-87, esp. pp. 314, 318, 379, 387;
2 (1907), pp. 205-55, esp. pp. 211 ff.
257 Theodor Lipps, "Zu den Gestaltqualitaten", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie,

22 (1900), pp. 384-85; Lipps, Einheiten und Relationen (Leipzig, 1902),
pp. 103-04. Cf. Leitfaden der Psychologie, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1909),
pp. 167 ff.
258 Georg Anschutz, tiber Gestaltqualitaten (Erlangen, 1909), pp. 14 ff., 36.
- 217 -
idealism became evident as he elaborated his theory of "empathy" later
in the decade. This was influential for a time in the philosophy of
art, and also in the phenomenological psychology of Moritz Geiger and Max-
Scheler. We have already seen, however, that it was roughly treated by

259
experimenting psychologists.
One of their number, Friedrich Schumann, rejected such elaborate
apperceptive processes, and also Meinongs "founded contents". The only
"intellectual work" needed to perceive form, he maintained, is attention.
In the case of Mach's square and diamond, for example, all the subject
needed to do was to focus long enough upon the lower comer of the square
260
or one side of the diamond, to recognize the similarity of the two figures.
Attention was the favorite locus for the higher mental processes among psy
chologists, and Schumann *s position is generally portrayed as skepticism,

261
or a retreat to "the classic, preholistic position." However, he was
a careful observer, and he could not help but recognize that there were phe
nomena which did not fit his view so easily. Most interesting were cases
of grouping. Although the lines presented in Figure 1 are evenly spaced,
subjects spontaneously see a series of "fence posts". When we alter
the distances only slightly, as in Figure 2, effort is needed
to separate a single line from the resulting "fence posts". Even
259 On the development of the empathy theory, see Jurgen B. Hunsdahl,

"Concerning Einfuhltmg (Empathy): A Conceptual Analysis of its Origin
and Early Development", Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 3 (1967), pp. 180-91.
260 Friedrich Schumann, "Beitrage zur Psychologie der Gesichtswahmehmun

gen", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 23 (1900), pp. 1-32, here pp. 18 f.
261 Herrmann, "Ganzheitspsychologie", loc. cit. Cf. Boring, History,

pp.445-46.
Figure 1: Subjective grouping
Figure 2: Stronger subjective grouping
Figure 3: Subjective contour
Source: Friedrich Schumann, "Beitrage," vol. 23, pp. 7, 10, 13.
- 219 -
more striking are cases of subjective contour, in which "boundaries" appear
as "independent elements", although they are not in the figure as drawn;
in figure 3, for example, we immediately see a square. Schumann recognized
that neither successive summation nor focused attention is sufficient to
account for such phenomena: "we probably have to do here with a sensory mo
ment which is not further definable, a final fact of consicousness, which

262
can only be made clear by examples."
Nonetheless Schumann polemicized against the "new content" offered
by Ehrenfels and Meinong. Alluding to Ehrenfels* red patch, Schumann ad
mitted that the similarity of spatial forms is not the same as that of
"fictive parts" (fingirte [sic!] Teile); but there was no reason to import
mathematical concepts into psychology. Psychological analysis should con
fine itself to elements which are actually given - points, lines and so
forth - and their relations. Gestalt qualities were not new contents,
or even new qualities, but features of these elements themselves. He
acknowledged that the recognition of a square in different positions,
for example, implies a presentation of the connection of the four sides,
and of the figure's "right-angleness" (Rechtwinkligkeit). "At most", how
ever, one could say that such additional contents had a "special capabi
lity" of summating the others; but it is simpler to ascribe this capabili
ty to the lines themselves. Schumann pointed out that Cornelius seemed to
agree with this view, since he said that the qualities were "features" of
the complex. If this is so, however, then Cornelius* assertion that
his position is only terminologically different from that of Ehrenfels is
incorrect; for Ehrenfels specifically stated that Gestalt qualities were
262 Schumann, "Beitrage", pp. 7 ff., 13, 27.
- 220 -
263
something different from the elements and their relations.
Schumann based his position in part upon his former mentor G.E.
Muller's theory of abstraction, which was similar to Hume's nominalism.
Yet even in this theory, as Cornelius pointed out, Hiller used the term
"modification" to describe what happens when contents are grouped by

264
similarity. In 1904 Miiller stated that certain factors made for a
pre-structuring of stimuli, which increased their "degree of coherence"
(Koharenzgrad) and thus made their "collective perception" (kollektive
Auffassung) as a "unified complex" easier. Among these factors he named
nearness, symmetrical position, "inclusion in common contours", habit and
expectation. This conception corresponded on the stimulus side to his
doctrine of "readiness", already discussed. However, Hiller did not pre
tend to know how these factors worked, nor did he say how he could re
concile their existence with even a modified associationism. He confined
his discussion of them to two pages near the end of his textbook of
psychophysical method.
By this time Meinong had worked out a model of consciousness which
allowed him to lay aside his earlier reference to Gestalt qualities as
"contents". He based his view upon the reform of Brentanos intentional
263 Schumann, "Beitrage", pp. 28 ff.
264 Hiller never published this theory himself. Schumann presented it

in the form of lecture notes in "Zur Psychologie der Zeitauffassung",
Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 17 (1898), pp. 107 ff. Cornelius' re-
tnark about "modification is in "Ober Gestaltqualitaten", p. 103.
265 Hiller, Gesichtspunkte und Tatsachen der psychophysischen Methodik

(Wiesbaden, 1904), pp. 237-38, esp. p. 238,n. 1.
- 221 -
model worked out by Brentano's student Kasimir Twardowski in 1894.
Twardowski asserted that a complete description of acts in which we are
conscious of something must include cot only the mental act and its con
tent, as Brentano had said, but also a non-mental "object" (Gegenstand)
to which this act can also be directed. The predicates "existence" and
"nonexistence" apply to acts and contents, but not necessarily to "ob
jects". The words of a proposition about round squares, for example, exist
as mental contents, but the objects to which they refer do not; they are,
to use Twardowski's terminology, "intentionally inexistent". Meinong ac
cepted this distinction and applied it to relations. Thus, the similarity
between the copy of a picture and its original, for example,does not exist
as the picture and the copy do; but it "obtains" (besteht). Objects which
"obtain", or "subsist", or "pseudo-exist", as he also put it, Meinong call
ed "objects of a higher order." Among these he expressly included rela-

266
tions and the complexes into which they enter, such as melodies and forms.
The distinction of content and object had important consequences.
At the level of epistemology, Meinong could now distinguish between the
necessary self-evidence of the statement "red is different from green"
and the immediate, or experiential evidence of the statement "I see red."
He could thus overcome psychologism without discarding psychology. He
had fought for the establishment of a psychological institute in Graz in
1894. In his preface to a volume published in honor of the institute's
266 Meinong, "tlber Gegenstande hoherer Ordnung und deren Verhaltnis

zur inneren Wahraehmung", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 11 (1899),
pp. 180-272, esp. pp. 186 f., 198 ff. Cf. "Uber Gegenstandstheorie",
in Meinong, ed., TJntersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psycholo
gie (Leipzig, 1904), pp. 1-50.
- 222 -
tenth anniversary, he wrote that experimental psychology is "never an end
in itself, but rather dedicated to the tasks of psychological theory, which
is itself a fundamental constituent, and an integrating part, though only
a part of the totality of closely related disciplines unified under the
name 'philosophy'." The theory of objects, which he dubbed the "science
of knowing", was in principle independent of psychology, the "science
of experience"; but close contact between them was essential, in his opinion,
267
because each could contribute to the other. Moreover, the entire frame
work rested upon his new, more complex model of the unit of thought, an
intentional judgment with several "moments" - fundaments, contents and "ob
jects".
It was this model which Meinong's psychologist coworkers Stefan
Witasek and Vittorio Benussi sought to validate experimentally. Ambiguous
figures and illusions seemed to provide excellent material for such an
attempt, because different judgments about objects are made on the basis
of the same sense data. In the case of ambiguous figures like the one
shown (Figure 4), there seemed to be no difficulty for the model. This is
i m s
Source: Benussi, "Gesetze des inadaqua-

ten Gestaltauffassens", Archiv
Figure 4: Ambiguous drawing fur die gesamte Psychologie,
32 (1914), p. 398.
generally described either as an endless, white figure on a black ground,
or as two opposed sets of black lines on a white ground. In Meinong's terms,
267 Meinong, "Vorwort", in Untersuchungen, p. vii. Cf. "Uber Gegenstands

theorie", p. 19.
- 223 -
a single set of contents is directed at two different "objects", according
to whether the perceiver judges them to be one or the other. In the case
of illusions, however, there was a problem. In Figure 5, a version of the
MullerLyer illusion, for example, the lines ab and be are equal, but are
usually judged to be unequal. Assuming the "subjective evidence" of judg-
Source: Benussi, "Psychologie des

Gestalterfassens", in: Meinong,
Untersuchungen, p. 414.
Figure 5: Mxiller-Lyer figure
ments of similarity and difference propounded by Meinong, Witasek reasoned
in an 1899 study that if we are presented an "adequate" idea of the line
abc - thatis, if the presentations of ab and be are equal, then the judg
ments we have of themmust also be equal. Here, however, the illusion per
sists even after we are convinced that itis an illusion. Witasek there
fore concluded that these are not illusions of judgment, but "illusions
* sensation..268
of
With this Benussi did not entirely agree. Instead he hypothesized
an intervening process between sensation and judgment. In doing this he
drew an analogy to the concept of "suppositions", judgments of "objects"
based on inadequate or incomplete introspective evidence, which Meinong was
developing at the time. Since melodies and figures do not exist, but "sub-
268 Stefan Witasek, "Cher die Natur der geometrisch-optischen Tauschun-

gen", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 19 (1899), pp. 81-175, esp. pp.
121-26, 131. For this and the following discussion, see also Linden-
feld, Transformation, chap. 9, esp. pp. 232 ff.
- 224 -
sist", Benussi asserted, "they cannot affect our senses." If we none
theless have presentations of them, then this must be due to "another psychic-
cal process", or rather to the prejudgmental "processing" (Bearbeitung) of
sensory material, which he called "production" at Meinongs suggestion.
If the mere seeing of points or hearing of tones is insufficient to grasp
Gestalten, then such "production" processes must supplement this material
and thus "lead to the construction of a Gestalt presentation [Gestaltvor-
stellung].
To test this hypothesis Benussi conducted a thorough study of the
Muller-Lyer illusion. After Brentano brought this "optical paradox" to
the attention of psychologists in the early 1890s, the field rapidly fill
ed with conflicting "physiological" and "psychological" interpretations.
"Physiological" views ranged from Muller-Lyer's own "confluxion" hypothe
sis, which, stressed the convergence of some secondary lines, e.g. those
on the right in Figure 5, and the divergence of others, to Wundts view,
which emphasized eye movements. "Psychological" hypotheses tended to evoke
one or another kind of judgments, such as the estimation of the angles,
as in Brentanos theory, or the perception of eye movements, in Lipps*.
In Benussi's contribution, then, the problem of form converged with the
growing tension between "physiological" and "psychological" categories in

270
perceptual theory.
269 Vittorio Benussi, "Zur Psychologie des Gestalterfassens", in Meinong,

ed., Untersuchungen, pp. 303-448, esp. pp. 308-10. Cf. Richard Amse-
der, "Uber Vorstellungsproduktionen", in Meinong, ed., Pntersuchungen,
pp. 481508.
270 For a summary of the various interpretations, see Benussi, "Gestalter-

fassen", pp. 414 ff.; cf. von Kries, supplement to Helmholtz, Optics
(cited above, n. 7), vol. 3, pp. 234 ff., 602-03.
- 225 -
Benussi asked bis subjects to concentrate alternately on tbe whole
figure and on one or another of its parts. He found that the "analytical"
attitude reduced, but did not eliminate the illusion, while the "Gestalt"
attitude increased it. This conclusion was supported with numerous exact
measurements of the strength of the illusion under varied conditions, even
with and without the middle line. Advocates of the "judgment" theory, like
Schumann, alluded to the effect of the analytical attitude, and had said
that concentration, careful comparison of the lines and practice could re
duce the illusion. Benussi replied that even in such cases the illusion
could not always be completely eliminated, and added that the opposite
effects of the two attitudes was a point against the "judgment" theory,
271
since comparison was just as careful in both cases. He also used his
results to refute the physiological hypotheses. If the illusion were due
to eye movements, for example, then differences of illumination should make
no difference, sines the syes con adjust to them. Yet the illusion does
272
vary with changes in illumination. For Benussi, the results showed
that our tendency to produce ideas of higher-order objects was the source
273
of the illusion. He subsequently applied the production theory to a
wide variety of other phenomena, from reversible and perspective drawings
to stroboscopic motion, and also to illusions of hearing and touch. We will
return to this work in part three.
271 Schumann, "Beitrage", vol. 30, pp. 263-64; Benussi, "Gestalterfas-

sen", p. 332, n 1.
272 Benussi, "Gestalterfassen", pp. 218, 404, esp. pp. 444 ff.
273 Benussi, "Gestalterfassen", p. 403; see also "Gesetze des inadaquaten

Gestaltauffassens", Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 32 (1914),
p. 409.
- 226 -
Witasek soon accepted Benussi*s conception of "production", with
minor variations. He also called it a "processing" theory, or, in another
place, a synthesis from physical material which reappears in consciousness

274
in the form of sensations or ideas. Witasek and Benussi were men of dif
ferent temperatments. Witasek, a musician, was closer to Meinong personal
ly. He continually stressed the broader philosophical implications of the
Graz school's results, especially for creative fantasy, and the freedom
they offered from rigid determinism with no sacrifice of analytic method or
scientific exactitude. Benussi was more the psychological specialist; he

275
reportedly slept on a cot in the laboratory. Yet he, too, saw his work
as an empirical test of Meinongs model of consciousness.
In either case, the problems with the theory were the same. "Pro
cessing" models of one sort or another, from attention to summation, were
common currency by this time; certainly these other terms were no more
precise in their way than "production". The problem was that no one could
give introspective evidence or any other account of this particular process.
Witasek tried to solve this by calling "produced" ideas "imageless", in

276
an indirect reference to the Wurzburg school; but this was of little help.
The Wurzburg investigators claimed, at least, to have introspective evidence
for their "imageless thoughts". Moreover, the thought processes studied in
274 Witasek, Grundlinien der Psychologie (Leipzig, 190S), e.g., pp. 232,
238-39.
275 Lindenfeld, Transformation, pp. 220-21; cf. Pritz Heider, "Gestalt

Theory: Early History and Reminiscences", in Mary Henle, et al., eds.,
Historical Conceptions of Psychology (New York, 1973), p. 6 6 .
276 Witasek, Grundlinien, p. 101.
- 227 -
Wurzburg and Bonn took time, virile impressions of form seemed to be quite
immediate. Benussi later felt forced to postulate unnoticed associations,
and in the end be dropped the confusing term "production" for the more
277
noncommital term "ideas of extrasensory provenance." With this psy
chologists might well have been reminded of Helmholtz's unconscious infer
ences.
More discomforting still for experimenting psychologists was the
dualism between sensations, the laws of which were reasonably well known,
and objects of a higher order, strange entities which could even be fiction
al. The idea that Gestalten were something other than sums of sensations
and relations which could be determining factors in perception, as Benus
si fs work seemed to imply, was difficult enough to accept. But if they were
so effective, it was even more troubling to imagine that they might be "in-
existent", whatever that meant. It was to avoid such dualisms that Meinong
had developed his version of the intentional model in the first place,
but the work of his own students revealed the model's insufficiency.
It is not surprising, then, that such reactions as there were to
the work of the Graz school were mainly negative. When Karl Buhler publish
ed an extensive monograph on Gestalt perception in 1913, he called the pro
duction theory "untenable" and mentioned so little of Benussi's research that
Benussi felt called upon to write a lengthy article to establish his priori-
278
ty. Perhaps the sharpest criticism came from Ernst Cassirer. If such
277 Benussi, "Gesetze", p. 401.
278 Karl Buhler, Die Gestaltwahmehmungen (Stuttgart, 1913), pp. 2830;

Benussi, "Die Gestaltwahrnehmungen", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 69
(1914), pp. 259-92.
- 228 -
complications were required in order to save the idea of "fundaments", he
wrote, perhaps it would be better to discard it, and also the idea that ele
ments "subsist" at all outside of connections and relations: "The question
here can never be how we go from the parts to the whole, but how we go from
the whole to the parts." We have already seen, however, what Cassirer
279
meant by proceeding "from the whole to the parts". Here, too, he said
that Gestalt qualities were only a "logical invariant" illuminated from
the psychological side. It was here that the logical idealism of the
Marburg school and the rationalist realism of Brentano met. Brentano, too,
had decided by 1911 that Gestalt qualities were no more than "a particular
280
kind and sum of relations", as his student Anton Marty put it.
Perhaps this was sufficient for logical purposes. As Schumann's
observations had shown, however, in psychology some relations were better
than others. As to why this was so there was little more clarity than there
had been before. Consistent associationists like Ebbinghaus saw no choice
but to accept relations and Gestalt qualities as ultimate data alongside
sensations, as Schumann did. To explain this he could only postulate a vague
similarity between "the mode of connection of the stimulus into a whole in
the outer world" on the one hand "and the properties of the nervous matter
within the sense organ and the general conditions of its construction" on
279 Cassirer, Substance and Function, pp. 335 , 333.
280 Anton Marty, Hhtersuchungen zur allgemeinen Gramrnatik und Sprach-

philosophie, vol. 1 (Halle, 1908), pp. 199 ff. However, not all Bren
tano students were of the same opinion. Cf. Josef Kreibig, Die in-
tellektuellen Fuhktionen: Untersuchungen uber Grenzfragen der Logik,
Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie (Vienna, 1909), pp. Ill ff. and
Alois Eofler, 'Gestalt und Beziehung. Gestalt und Anschauung", Zeit-
- 229 -
the other. "Naturally this does not mean to explain things," he added,
281
"hut it does mean to prefer honest poverty to the appearance of wealth."
Carl Stumpffs answer was somewhat more complex. He recognized that
there were cases of "immanent structure", such as tone color and tonal
fusion, but he refused to include Gestalt qualities among them. Melodies,
rather, were special cases of "aggregates" (Inbegriffe), in which similar
tone and rhythm relations and their associated images and feelings are
summarized in consciousness. As a name for these he cited Husserl's designa
tion "moments of unity", but preferred the word "form" from ordinary language.
Form is not itself an appearance, however, but "the correlate of the summariz-
282
ing function" responsible for the appearance of the complex collection.
In a thorough summary of the discussion up to 1911, Stumpf's student Adhemar
Gelb adopted this position, and brought out the presupposition behind it -
that relations are contents of consciousness like any other. Thus no new
content was needed: "We can indeed ignore the absolute elements of a comr-
\
plex and attend to its configuration, but according to our presuppositions

\
this would mean nothing more than to pay attention to the mutual relations
of the parts [Glieder]." At this level, then, Stumpf's and Ebbinghaus' po
sitions were the same, despite their different philosophical and psychologic
al standpoints. Yet the weaknesses of the "attention" theory had already
been made apparent by Schumann's observations. Gelb admitted that this
view did little justice to "the unity, the enclosed character [Insichge-
281 Ebbinghaus, Grundziige, 2nd ed. (1905), p. 462; cf. Abriss, p. 67.
282 Stumpf, "Erscheinungen", pp. 28 f.
- 230 -
283
schlossehheit] of entities like melodies, shapes and so forth."
As the increasing frequency of the comments indicates, the Gestalt

284
problem had become "one of the most current issues in psychology" by 1910.
However, psychologists and philosophers seemed unable to accomodate forms,
or wholes, especially the immediacy with which they appeared, within
their various categorical frameworks. Only one of the theoretical per
spectives on the problem had generated an appreciable amount of research
by this time. This would soon change; but even with increasing research,
the connections to fundamental philosophical problems remained. It seemed
impossible to talk about the nature and experience of wholes without also
raising central ontological and epistemological issues.
The implications extended even beyond this, for the problem of
form exposed weaknesses in the prevailing framework of neurophysiological
theory, as well. The firm belief on which that framework rested was ex
pressed neatly in a remark the Berlin neuroanatomist Wilhelm Waldeyer reported
ly made to Charles Sherrington; the brain, he said, is "a thinking machine

285
[Denkmaschine]." This mechanistic faith was based primarily on the
notion of neural process as the conduction of electrical impulses along fix
ed paths. The discovery of the synapse showed that nerves were not exact
ly like telephone wires, but this did not alter the principle of linear trans
mission. The growing success of the neuron theory developed by Waldeyer, Ramon
y Cajal and others, and the increasingly detailed anatomical atlases assembled
by His and Golgi seemed to support the idea that the tracing of pathways
283 Adhemar Gelb, "Theoretisches uber die Gestaltqualitaten", Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 58 (1911), pp. 1-59, here pp. 51, 56.
284 Gelb, "Theoretisches uber die Gestaltqualitaten", op. cit., p. 1.
285 Quoted in Allen, Life Sciences, p. 94.
- 231 -
would lead, sooner or later, to an understanding of all functions, from
the reflexes to the higher mental processes. Sherrington's attempt to
carry out this program showed that this task would not be so easy; complex
interactions of nerve and muscle groups were the rule even for the simpler
286
reflex reactions. But these results were only beginning to have an
impact in Germany by 1910. In that year one physiologist stated bluntly
that -"the task of natural-scientific psychology" was the explanation of
"all mental events as expressions of conduction or pathway processes ...
with the accomplishment of this task, mental life would present itself in
an extraordinary simplicity which would overcome all of the wordy explana-

287
tions of the old psychology."
In a 1906 speech indicatively entitled "The Mechanics of Mind",
the Gottingen physiologist Max Verwora showed how this prescription applied
to learning and memory. The cerebral mechanism, he said, consists of
an enourmous network of ganglions and nerve fibers, through which "ex
citation and inhibition impulses" are transmitted. All learning results
from "the methodical exercise [einuben] of associative connections between
some of these impulses and the simultaneous inhibition of others." The dif
ference between a better and a worse memory is simply the difference in
the frequency and aftereffects of these connections. Verwom explained
the retention of these aftereffects by referrinng to "dissimilatory ex-
286 For discussions of Sherrington's work and its background, see Allen,
Life Sciences, pp. 8 8 ff., and Judith P. Swazey, Reflexes and Motor
Integration (Cambridge, Mass., 1969).
287 A. Buttner, Zweierlei Dehken. Ein Beitrag 2 ur Physiologie des Denkens

(Leipzig, 1910), p. 6 .
- 232 -
citations". These
flash and run along the association paths from ganglion cell to
ganglion cell, releasing now excitatory and now inhibitory ef
fects. Where they appear, they disturb the balance of chemical
exchange for a brief instant, then they disappear again, and
while the old balance is quickly restored, a tiny trace of their
effect remains which time erases only after many years. That
is the mechanism of the mind.288
Such views were clearly fully in accord with associationist psychology;

289
G.E. Muller*s students were required to attend Verworn's lectures.
Incisive warnings against the "overestimation" of the conduction
principle and its coordinate, association theory, came in an 1898 lecture
by Johannes von Kries entitled "On the Material Bases of the Phemonema
of Consciousness". His primary criticism was that neurophysiologists
had placed too much confidence in concepts drawn from peripheral processes
because of their superior knowledge of them. Central processes are "com
pletely different." The conduction theory could explain the strengthening
of an already existing association, but for the creation of such links,
for example the naming of an object, it is "inadequate". In fact, von Kries
argued, it is difficult to understand how "the associative influence of
complexes" occurs at all on this theory. The excitations produced by the
sight of a single object in different positions, for example a horse seen
from the front or the side, have "absolutely nothing in common,1' not even
their spatial relation; yet the object is nonetheless recognized as the same.
288 Max Verwom, "Die Mechanik des Geistes" (1906), in Wilhelm Ebel, ed.,
Gottinger Universitatsreden axis zwei Jahrhunderten (Gottingen, 1918),
pp. 452-64, esp. pp. 462, 463-64. Cf. Die Mechanik des Geisteslebens,
2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 71-73.
289 Katz, "Autobiography", p. 192.
- 233 -
The same is true of temporally extended phenomena, such as melodies, rhythms
and the like. The nominalism employed by philosophers as a way out of such
dilemmas is of little use here, for the fact that we designate things in
this way presupposes the physiological facts we want to explain. Von Kries
concluded that "nothing offers so many significant difficulties to physiologic
al interpretation at the moment as the psychological significance of the
relation of similarity"; there can be "no escape" to subcortical processes

-
here. 290
The only attempt to solve the problem, he said, is the answer pre
sented by Sigmund Exner and Ernst Mach, which he called "the hypothesis of
accompanying phenomena [Begleiterscheinungen]." This, however, only shifts
the problem to another area, such as kinaesthetic sensations. Aside from
the fact that it cannot be carried through - how can the six muscles
responsible for eye movements account for all the rich variety of form phe
nomena? - the hypothesis is theoretically unsatisfying. Mach in particular
violates his own canons of simplest description when he demands "another spe
cial quality, another point of agreement each time" for melodies, visual
forms, and so forth. If this is only another version of parallelism, von
Kries said, "then it would neither be new nor particularly fruitful."
Since the quality of agreement which makes for the appearance of form is the
same whether we are talking about rhythm or visual shape, Mach's parallelism
can be applied "only if we wished to go so far as to postulate always the
absolutely identical process as the substrate of the psychologically unified
.... But I do not know how the justification or the necessity of such a
290 Johannes von Kries, fiber die materiellen Grundlagen der BewuBtseins-
erscheinungen (Freiburg, 1901), pp. v, 5, 14 f., 17 ff., esp. pp. 22-
24.
- 234 -
narrow view could be supported." There is no need for such ideas "if we
limit ourselves to the proposition that the physically similar corresponds

291
to the psychically similar."
In the physiology of the central nervous system as well as in psy
chology, von Kries recognized, "the belongingness [ZusammengehSrigkeit]
of the similar must be established somehow, and directly, not via the detour
of identical components." But how? He confessed that he could not answer
this question satisfactorily. Clearly, the connections involved in such
processes would have to be functional, not associative in character; the question
was whether they were intercellular of intracellular. He tended to accept
the latter alternative, especially the idea of series of functionally similar
cells, each of which retains a trace of the excitations caused by an object,
but in a slightly different way. The differentiation required to deal with
the horse example, for instance, would thus be achieved. "New thoughts"
about the plasticity of neurons could open up interesting prespectives, also.
In any case, he asserted, there is no reason to wait until we have complete
anatomical knowledge of the brain before setting up hypotheses, about its
functional; we know enough already to be able to evaluate them. 292
Mach responded to von Kries in later editions of The Analysis of
Sensations. After quoting von Kries* criticism in the chapter on "space sen
sations", he suggested that "in these more complicated cases of similarity
the similarity arises not from the presence of one common element, but from
a common system of elements." In his discussion of conceptual thinking, he
elaborated this point somewhat. "Complicated concepts," he asserted,
291 Von Kries, BewuBtseinserscheinungen, pp. 26 ff., esp. pp. 34-35.
292 Von Kries, BewuBtseinserscheinungen, pp. 36, 44 ff., 51-52.
- 235 -
will require a complicated system of reactions, drawing upon

more or less large parts of the central nervous system, and help
ing to create a correspondingly complicated system of sensation
al elements characterizing the concept. Probably the difficul
ties pointed out by J. von Kries are not insuperable on this
theory.293
In these remarks, however, the word "system" was little more than a faqon
de parler. Mach explained its meaning in somewhat greater detail in an
added chapter on the relation of physics to biology. With the substitution
of functional dependency for strict mechanistic causality in physics, he
explained, "everything is resolved in relations of mutual dependence."
The motions of gravitating masses, e.g., are determined not only by their
respective positions and velocities but also by the positions and velocities
of the other masses in the system. When no disturbance intervenes from with
out, we may speak of a "closed system", in which "all accurately and clear-
294
ly recognized relations may be regarded as mutual relations of simultaneity."
The system concept in this form would prove to be of central importance in the
development of Gestalt theory.
Though Mach dogmatically asserted that "every organism together with
its parts is subject to the laws of physics," he freely admitted the dif
ficulty of applying this notion in detail. He adopted Herings idea that
the organism is a system "which manifests a state of dynamic equilibrium of
considerable stability". However, despite the use of the words "system"
and "equilibrium" in both cases, it was clear that there was an essential
difference. Whereas lack of external interference was an important assump
tion for the clear description of physical systems, self-maintenance against
293 Mach, Analysis, pp. 70, 327.
294 Mach, Analysis,pp. 89-90.
- 236 -
external interference was the defining feature of the organic. Though
teleology really did not belong in Machs view of science, it seemed dif
ficult to keep it out. Physics, he admitted, "still has much that is new
to learn before it is in a position to control the organic." In particular,
he acknowledged that "we do not indeed know what are the physical counter
parts to memory and association. All the explanations that have been attempt
ed are very much forced. In this respect it seems as if there were almost
295
no analogy between the organxc and the inorganic."
Precisely this was the central point of the extensive treatment of
the mind-body problem published by Erich Becher in 1911. The unusual
feature of the book, certainly the one which made it interesting to psycho
logists, was Becher1s use of psychological experiments to refute physiologic
al hypotheses. He criticized the current excitation-inhibition and locali
zation theories in all their forms, but focused particularly upon the notion
of residua or "traces" in individual brain cells. Such views, he claimed,
are incapable in principle of accounting for "the unique reproductive effect"
of forms "independent of their size, position in sensory space, and quali-

296
ty." Perhaps the most elegant of Becher*s many demonstrations of this
effect was an experiment he performed with drawings. He presented meaning
less, asymmetrical line figures tachistoscopically in such a way that they
would be projected only to one specific portion of the retina, and had his
subjects associate them with letters and numbers in given sequences. He then
changed the exposure position of the drawings so that they would be project
ed to a different portion of the retina, hence, according to then-current
295 Mach, Analysis, pp. 98-99, 100-101. Emphasis in the original.
296 Erich Becher, Gehira und Seele (Heidelberg, 1911), p. 227.
- 237 -
assumptions, to different parts of the visual sphere in the brain. The
results were clear: the associated items were reproduced even when the
figures were offered in different colors and positions, although the cells
stimulated in the second series should have contained no trace of the pre-
297
viously learned association.
Von Kries had said that one could attempt to save the hypothesis by
saying that associative effects could be called up by any part of a figure,
so that there probably was at least punctual overlap in the two sets of pre
sentations. Becher showed that this assumption did not always hold. Remov
ing a point from the lower portion in the cross pictured in figure 6, for
example, does not appreciably change the effect; but removing either the
uppermost point or the ones to the right and left does. It is not immediate
ly clear, Becher asserted, how any physiological hypothesis could explain
Source: Drawn freehand from Becher,

Gehirn und Seele, p. 232.
Figure 6: Dot cross
the special significance of one point in a figure for the perception of the
whole. He refuted the hypothesis of "accompanying phenomena" in essentially
the same way as von Kries, quoting him extensively and adding numerous cases.
Two circles of different sizes in different positions, for example, are still
recognized as similar and can produce similar ideas in consciousness, al
though no element of one figure is similar to the other and no sensations
297 Becher, Gehim und Seele, pp. 216 ff., esp. pp. 219 ff.
- 238 -
of direction can be involved. Becher's conclusion was categorial; if
"physiological" hypotheses cannot explain these relatively uncomplicat
ed form phenomena, then they cannot be retained for simple sensory qualia,
298
either.
He then extended this verdict to von Kries' speculations about func
tional interaction in single cells, and to the more fully developed "mneme"
theory which had been worked out in the interval by Richard Semon. Brief
ly put, Semon's theory stated that a pattern of residua, an "engram", is
left behind extending to all brain cells, only more highly concentrated and
hence clearer in some parts of the brain than in others. In addition,
layers of "engrams" can be built up over time and held together by simul
taneous association. Thus traces of numerous excitations, and of different
kinds of excitation, can be retained in the same brain cell, while at the
same time networks or layers of cells can retain traces of the same exci-
299
tation. Becher recognized the great advantages of this functional view
over more rigid theories, but pointed out that Semon had avoided the issues
raised by the Gestalt problem. Even if Gestalt residua could be located
in the same cell, it was difficult to imagine how the residua in one cell
could also account for the qualitative characteristic of forms - the retention,
of their character despite differences of color, size and position. Semon
could say that Gestalten are represented by the totality of residua in all
the cells, but this would mean a return to the intercellular theory with
298 Becher, Gehim und Seele, pp. 230 f., 249, 283.
299 Richard Semon, Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzipim Wechseldes or-
ganischen Geschehens, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1908), esp. pp. 169 ff.;
cf. Becher, Gehim und Seele, esp. pp. 155 ff.
- 239 -
ail its problems. "What we have been offered is more a cell for an intra
cellular hypothesis than the presentation of one," Becher asserted; "we
may therefore speak of the failure of all physiological hypotheses on me-

i.300
mory.
Becher admitted that he could not refute the possibility of phy
siological explanations of psychical processes for all time, but said that
such hypotheses were only "a detour" in any case. The fact that they had
been demanded at all was probably due more to "historical than objective
reasons," particularly to the higher status of the natural sciences in ge
neral. This should have been enough to put physiology in its place and
thus to justify an independent scientific position for psychology. Instead
Becher went much further, arguing for the independence of "psychical cau
sality" alongside physical causality. Just as realism has made concessions
to phenomenalism in the natural sciences, he said, so phenomenalism must now
make concessions to realism in psychology. This posed the question of the
relationship between the two realms. Becher's answer was a complex attempt
to reconcile parallelism and interactionism. Since in principle both material
things and mental processes can produce phenomena in consciousness without
being in consciousness themselves, "a world of appearances is in principle
possible ... which in their connection depict the connection of reality as
such. To this extent we would have parallelism." He acknowledged that this
position pointed the way to psychovitalism, for which he had already prepared
the ground in other ways, and repeated his assertion that such a view would
301
not contradict the energy principle. Becher clearly thought that he had
300 Becher, Gehim und Seele, p. 292.
301 Becher, Gehim und Seele, pp. 293, 344, 374.
- 240 -
discovered in Gestalt phenomena the definitive proof he needed to establish
the non-physical reality of the psychical.
That is where Becher left the issue, and this is where we may
leave it, as well, for the time being. The strategic importance of this
single problem could not have been brought home more clearly. Not only
key issues of logic and epistemology, but the ontological status of mind
were at stake.
8. The Situation Reassessed
Explicitly or implicitly, the central issue in all of the debates de
scribed in these pages was the intellectual identity of an emerging disci
pline. By 1910, there was little doubt about the existence of experimental
psychology as a field of research with highly developed methods of its own
and a scientific community with at least a negative consensus. However,
an adequate assessment of the theoretical value of these methods depended
upon a framework of presuppositions about reality, about science and about
the relations of the sciences to one another. Whether or not that framework
had ever been stable, it was certainly in flux by the turn of the century.
This made experimental psychologists' attempt to balance the intellecutal
and institutional demands of philosophy and natural science even more
complex and difficult than it would have been in any case.
On the natural science side, the situation was most clearly reflect
ed in the tension between "physiological" and "psychological", or peripher
al and central categories in perceptual theory. Techniques of observation
which had proven their worth in sensory physiology were widely adopted by
- 241 -
experimenting psychologists, but the limiting assumptions about sensation
and mind on which they were based were not. The gradual introduction of
the heuristic phenomenalism employed by Hering and others offered an alter
nate perspective, and even the possibility of positive cooperation with
physiology on the basis of the parallelistic assumptions formulated in
G.E. Mullers "psychophysical axioms". But precisely the complexity of the
world revealed by careful phenomenological observation indicated the pro
blematic character of such hopes. We have just seen how the problem of form
heightened the difficulty of this situation still further. It was for this
reason, and not only to preserve the mechanistic assumptions of physiology,
that Johannes von Kries suggested the careful separation of physiological
and psychological research. However, separation did not necessarily mean
alienation. It was also von Kries who exposed the insufficiency of phy
siological categories as they then stood to account for higher mental proces
ses, and acknowledged that psychological research might indeed provide in
formation of a general kind about the functioning of the brain. For von
Kries, this meant only that central phenomena were different from peripher
al phenomena, so that a reform of neurophysiology was needed. Others, how
ever, drew furtherreaching, ontological conclusions. By 1910, then, the
special character of the psychical and the problems this posed for psycholo
gy as a natural science were as much a part of the current scene as they had
ever been.
Wilhelm Wundt had dealt with this dilemma in his own way decades
earlier. For him, as for many others in his time, mechanistic physics seem
ed to offer both a secure model of scientific thinking and an adequate foil
against which to construct an independent, experimental but still philosophical
- 242 -
discipline. The security of this belief was more apparent than real from
the beginning. Already in the 1870s mechanism was beginning to give way
to field theory, and atomism - temporarily - to the flux of phenomenologic
al physics. The Machian epistemology and philosophy of science which support
ed these developments, in part at least, also supported the naturalistic
ideas of the post-Wundtian generation of experimenting psychologists. How
ever, precisely the increasing use of introspection which the phenomenalist
model seemed to justify brought results which undermined the ontological
assumptions on which it was based. Ernst Cassirer described the situation
clearly in 1911. Psychologists, he said, had attempted to avoid scepticism
by declaring the "elements" of consciousness to be psychological reality,
thus committing theerror of confusing that reality with its representation:
The ultimate parts which we can conceptually discriminate become

the absolute atoms out of which the being of the psychical is
constituted. But this being remains ambiguous in spite of every
thing. Properties and characteristics constantly appear in it
that cannot be explained and deduced from the mere summation of
the particular parts.302
Cassirer was talking about the psychologist's fallacy; in one form or another,
such criticisms had been circulating for a generation. In response to
them, many experimentalists retreated to the position Wundt had held from
the beginning, that of heuristic elementism. This seemed all the more jus
tified, as the same kind of conventionalism seemed to be becoming the norm
in physics, also. But even the "as if" stance proved difficult to maintain
in the face of mounting evidence; and here again the form problem was the
most intractable of many.
302 Cassirer, Substance and Function, p. 332.
- 243 -
However, Cassirer's logical idealist prescription for this dilemma
was not widely accepted. Even as philosophers like Husserl and Meinong
moved ever closer to such logicist positions, they tried to maintain their
hold upon psychological, if not physical reality. In the process they de
veloped conceptions of consciousness which promised to overcome if not eli
minate sensationalism. Husserl insisted in calling the view he attacked
"psychologism", thus identifying one view of the psychical with psychology in
general; but he was by no means alone in this. For many would - be reformers
of consiousness, the tension between empiricist assumptions about mind and
the phenomena of purpose and will, or the validity of logical propositions,
proved to be too great. The result was a mutual parting of the ways, as
many philosophers chose to leave scientific psychology as it was and seek a
solution elsewhere. James' solution was pragmatism. Bergson chose the me
taphysics of the elan vital, while Driesch and Becher offered neovitalism
and psychovitalism, respectively. The Southwest German Neo-Kantians spoke
of transcendental "norms" or "values", and Dilthey approached them when he
elaborated the concept of "objective spirit" in his later philosophy. In
the end, Husserl, too, went over to the transcendental party.
These thinkers were aided and abetted in their exodus to higher ground
by the parlous situation in psychology itself. Despite the accumulation of
large amounts of data, experimenting psychologists seemed unable to solve
many of their own empirical and methodological problems, let alone provide
a secure empirical basis for the philosophy of mind. Oswald Kulpe and his
students frankly offered their experimental results as evidence for a revised
realist world-view. By this time, however, most philosophers seemed unprepar
ed to listen, not least because these results were so sharply attacked by
- 244 -
the psychologists themselves. Meanwhile, alternative "humanistic" psycho
logies were beginning to emerge which would soon provide effective compe
tition to the experimentalists in the struggle for philosophical legiti
macy.
Thus, the intellectual situation of experimental psychology in
Germany was at least as difficult and uncertain as its institutional situa
tion. Certainly this was not the only field in which significant empirical
progress was being made x&ile methodological and theoretical uncertainty
remained. It was an age of specialization and fragmentation in economy and
society as well as in academic life. In this situation, the call for a world
view of some kind was raised with increasing intensity. We have already seen
that philosophers like Georg Simmel were willing to heed that call. Those
who commited themselves to experimental psychology may have shared such hopes,
but the requirement of natural-scientific method remained. The middle po
sition they had chosen could be frustrating or challenging. One way or the
other, it was only logical that in such complex times of transition an apparent
ly decisive experimental solution to vexing psychological problems which also
pointed the way to the resolution of important philosophical issues, would
change the lives of those involved in finding it. To their story we now turn.
Part three: T h e Emergence and Early D e v e l o p m e n t of Gestalt
Theory, 1910 - 1920
1 Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler: Social Background,

Academic Training and Early Research
The generation of experimenting psychologists to which the makers of
Gestalt theory belonged faced a highly complex problem of orientation. Con
ceptual shifts in many fields pointed to the beginnings of intellectual re
volutions in both science and philosophy. Part of this process was the
discovery by some psychologists and philosophers that categories taken from
mechanistic physiology or from empiricist or rationalist philosophy were
insufficient to deal with the facts about mind. Yet, in Germany at least, the
tasks set for psychology by society - the development of an empirically based
but still philosophical world-view - remained at least formally in effect.
The response of Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler to this si
tuation was a radical reform of psychological thinking intended to satisfy
the requirements of both science and philosophy, of method and mind. Theirs
was a common effort; but each of them made distinct contributions to it,
because each of them grew into the experimenting psychologists orientation
problem in his own way.
a. Max Wertheimer
In his jubilee tribute to Carl Stumpf, Max Wertheimer credited his
teacher with inculcating in his students the ideal of psychology in the ser
vice of an empirical, but not empiricist, philosophy. However, Wertheimer
- 245 -
- 246 -
was prepared long before and in many ways to accept such a view of science
and to make it his own. B o m in 1880 into an "enlightened" - that is, non
orthodox - German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, his intellectual and
cultural efforts were supported from the beginning.* His mother, Rosa
Zwicker, the daughter of a male nurse, was well-versed in German literature
and music. Young Max learned to play the piano and took violin lessons
and spent many evenings making music with her. His father, Wilhelm, had only
a grammar school education, but became a wealthy and respected businessman
and founder of a highly successful commercial academy. The system of in
struction he devised for his school relied on personal tutorials rather
than on rigid drill. Max Wertheimer worked for a time at the school, and
later advocated such individualized methods in his last work, Productive Think-
The picture we have of the Wertheimers' family life and of Max Wert
heimer's education corresponds to that of many German-speaking Jewish fa
milies in Prague at that time - a combination of successful assimilation in

3
the larger society with attempts to maintain Jewish identity in the home.
1 The most extensive available accounts of Wertheimer's life are Michael

Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer, Gestalt Prophet", Gestalt Theory, 2 (1980),
pp. 3-17, and the "Wertheimer memoir, a long interview conducted by
Michael Wertheimer with his mother, Anne Wertheimer Hombostel, an edited
transcript of which is in the Archives of the History of American Psycho
logy, Akron, Ohio. See also Edwin B. Newman, "Max Wertheimer", American
Journal of Psychology, 57 (1944), pp. 429-35, and Abraham S. Luchins,
"Wertheimer, Max, 1 in David Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences (New York, 1968), vol. 16, pp. 522-26.
2 Max Wertheimer, Productive Thinking (1945), 2nd ed., ed. Michael Wert
heimer (New York, 1959), p. 164.
3 For this view see Gary B. Cohen, "Jews in German Society: Prague, 1860
1914", in David Bronson, ed., Jews and Germans from 1860 to 1933: The
problematic Synthesis (Heidelberg, 1979), pp. 306-37.
- 247 -
Max was sent to a Catholic elementary school run by the Fiarist fathers,
then prepared for university at the famous Kleinseite Gymnasium; but he
and his older brother Walter also studied Hebrewand learned the Torah.
It was when his maternal grandfather, Jacob Zwicker, gavehim a volume of
Spinoza*s works for his tenth birthday that seeds of doubt about these stu
dies were planted and the roots of his later world-view be;gan to sprout.
As one biographer reports, "the boy's complete absorption in the book led
his parents to restrict his reading, but he continued to read Spinoza se
cretly with the connivance of the maid, who concealed the book in her
trunk." Five years later, during a family argument about the Sidra, the
weekly Torah portion, Max showed that he had taken the rational humanist's
vision to heart: "it's completely unnecessary for religion, or for know
ledge of the Bible, to know what tke Sidra happens to be this week. De
manding that would be nonsense.'"^
When he entered Prague's Charles University in 1898, Wertheimer re
gistered in the legal faculty. However, courses in philosophy, physiology,
music and art history soon began to dominate, and after five semesters he
shifted to the philosophical faculty. Among his teachers were the physio
logists Johannes Gad, Arnold Pick and Sigmund Exner, the criminologist
Hans Gross, the educator Otto Willmann, and the philosophers Emil Arleth,
Anton Marty and Joseph Schultz. But the name which appears most frequent
ly on his record is that of Christian von Ehrenfels, who had been called
to a professorship in Prague in 1896. From "Prague's great philosopher," as
Max Brod later called him, Max Wertheimer heard lectures and seminars in
4 Luchins, "Wertheimer", p. 522; Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer," p. 8.
- 248 -
psychology, theory of value, and other topics.^ His intellectual hold
on Wertheimer seems to have endured at least until 1907, when he published
a series of essays on sexual ethics in which he advocated, among other
things, the eugenic selection of superior individuals who would be permitted
to engage in polygamy, while others would be forbidden to breed. Wert
heimer read and carefully underlined the first of these essays, accompanying
the key points of the argument with exclamation points in the margin; he
did not do the same with the others.*
By this time, he had long since left Charles University for further
study in Berlin. There he worked from 1902 to 1904 with Stumpf and Fried
rich Schumann, becoming so involved in the new experimental methods that
he read through all twenty-five volumes of the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie
which had appeared up to that time. There, too, he met and became friends
with Erich von Hombostel, Stumpf's assistant at the Phonogramm-Archiy,
and deepened his knowledge of music by attending four courses with the
musicologist Friedlaender. He also heard the lectures of Wilhelm Dilthey
in history of philosophy, Friedrich Paulsen in pedagogy, and Wagner and
Schmoller in political economy.^ In addition, he also took an active part
5 Max Brod, Per Prager Kreis (Frankfurt a.M., 1979), p.138. For a vivid
portrait of Ehrenfels as teacher and personality, see Brod's autobio
graphy, Streitbares Leben (rev. ed., Munich, 1969), pp. 209 ff. A tran-
scription of Wertheimers Charles University record is in the Max Wert
heimer papers, Boulder, Colorado; see also Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer",
p. 9.
6 Ehrenfels, "Zuchtwahl und Monogramie", Politisch-anthropologische Revue,

1 (1906), Hefte 8-9; "Monogamische Entwicklungsaussichten", ibid., 2
(1907), Heft 9; "DieSexuelle Reform", ibid., 2 (1907), Heft 12. Wert
heimer's copies are in the Wertheimer papers, Boulder, Colorado. For
an account of the controversy to which Ehrenfels' views led, see Brod,
Streitbares Leben, p. 211. There Brod asserts that Ehrenfels "always
sharply opposed antisemitism."
7 A record of Wertheimer's course registrations in Berlin is in the Wert-
- 249 -
Berlin cultural life thorugh his friendship with the industrialist Georg
Stern, Stem's wife Lisbeth and Lisbeth's sister Kathe Kollwitz. Evenings
were spent at the theater, concerts, and lectures, or at home with the
Stems, where chamber music was played almost every night and long discus-
O
sions were held about art, music, education, politics and philosophy.
Wertheimer seemed to have found his niche in Berlin. Yet he did
not complete his dissertation there, but went instead to Oswald Eulpe's
Wurzburg institute, where he received his degree summa cum laude in the
autumn of 1904. Why this happened is still not clear. Kurt Koffka refers
in a later memoir to a "difference of personalities" between Wertheimer

9
and Stumpf, but gives no details. Surely there could have been no objection
to Wertheimer's topic, the psychology of testimony; Stumpf was offering
seminars in legal psychology at just this time. More probable is that Wert
heimer had chosen not to apply the methods then in use at the Berlin insti
tute, but to continue research he had already begun in Prague with his law
school friend Julius Klein.
In the same year, the two men published a programmatic article in
a journal edited by their law professor Hans Gross, one of the founders
of criminology, which clearly indicates the high hopes they had for their
work. In it they criticized current methods of assessing the truth of
heimer papers, Boulder, Colorado. Wertheimer listed his teachers in the

autobiography appended to his dissertation, cited below; cf. Newman,
"Max Wertheimer,'.' p. 429.
8 Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer," p. 10.
9 Koffka, "Beginnings of Gestalt Theory," lecture delivered 18 April 1931,

in the Kurt Koffka papers, Archives of the History of American Psycho
logy, Akron, Ohio, Box M379, p. "a".
- 250 -
statements made in court, which had concentrated too much on testing the
credibility of the witness or suspect and not enough on the issue of
'whether a specific event really happened or not." They proposed to de
velop "not a psychology of statements," but a method for "the psychologic
al diagnosis of states of affairs- or facts. The major problem in the
way of such an effort, they acknowledged, was the lack of cooperation
of the suspects themselves. To counteract this Wertheimer and Klein pro
posed to use a variation of the word association technique as an elaborate
ruse.
The supposition was that a criminal act, like any other, leaves
behind a characteristic "complex" of associatively linked perceptions, judg
ments and feelings, all with a strong "feeling tone." Words which were like
ly to be part of such a complex, such as "silver", "garden", "doorstep," in
a case of theft from a luxurious home, could be presented along with "ir
relevant" words in a series and suspects reactions tested. A determined
suspect could easily keep calm in such a situation, and succeed in avoiding
any outward sign of recognition; but he could not prevent words or ideas
from the complex from occuring first in reaction to the relevant words in
the series. "On the contrary, the will to deceive will have precisely this
result in most cases." The suspect would then either reveal himself by
responding with these words, or seek others and thus take longer to react.
Though the principle was simple enough, the methodological problems were not.
Wertheimer and Klein therefore proposed a number of variations, including
10 Max Wertheimer & Julius Klein, "Psychologische Tatbestandsdiagnostik,"

Archiv fur Kriminalanthropolgoie und Kriminalistik, 15 (1904), pp. 72-
113, here pp. 74-75. The phrase "psychology of statements" refers to
William Sterns Psychologie der Aussage.
- 251 -
physiological techniques of the kind employed in modern lie detection.**
In his dissertation, Wertheimer then proceeded to concrete investi
gations. He presented to each observer the diagram of a house in which
a theft had occurred, but told them nothing at first of this or of his
purpose in general. He then presented them with word series and took pro
tocols of their reactions and reaction times. Subjects were also asked
to describe their experiences, using the method then being developed
in Wurzburg for the study of thought. The observers then went through simi
lar test series again, but with the explicit instruction to deceive the in
vestigator about their knowledge of the complex words. As a control ex
periment, individual words or word pairs were offered instead of longer
series. The results confirmed expectations, both objectively, in that
reaction times were appreciably longer and distributed differently for
the complex words, and qualitatively, in that "artificial" behavior pat
terns - embarrassed pauses, for example - emerged with the intent to de
ceive, in which a "conscious disposition" (Bewufitseinslage) appeared, but
no word or image. Wertheimer also found, however, that although the ob
jective "unity" of a complex was an important factor influencing the results,

. 12
it was not a sine qua non.
Especially noteworthy in all of this is, first of all, the shift of
subject matter from the programmatic article to the dissertation. Wert-
11 Wertheimer & Klein, "Psychologische Tatbestandsdiagnostik", esp. p. 79.
12 Wertheimer, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur Tatbestandsdiagnostik,"

Phil. Diss. Wurzburg, 1904, published separately (Leipzig, 1905), and
in Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 6 (1905), pp. 59-131.
Citations here are from the separate publication, esp. pp. 53 ff., 59,
64.
- 252 -
heimer and Klein had proposed to determine by psychological means whether
events had actually occurred. In the dissertation Wertheimer stated that
he wished "To draw conclusions about the existence and character of psy-
13
chical facts from ... forms of external behavior." This is a more exact
description, since his subjects had committed no crime; but it was more
than a matter of petty exactitude. The language Wertheimer employed, in
cluding terms like "task" and "conscious disposition," came from the work
of the Wurzburg school, especially that of Karl Marbe and Henry Watt.
Watt and Kiilpe were two of Wertheimer's five subjects, along with Ernst
Durr, another leading member of the school. We are evidently dealing here
with a case of extremely rapid scientific socialization. . However, the me
thod of "experience recall" (Kundgabe) appears in only one section of the thesis,
and does not reappear in any of his later work. Furthermore, the theory
of "complexes" is based squarely upon classical associationism. Wertheimer
states that "whole complexes" should be presented where possible, but he
means only that series of words are preferable to single words or syllables.
There is no discussion of the ontological or epistemological problems posed
by the use of such terms.
The importance and potential applicability of Wertheimer's technique
were recognized quickly. It was frequently cited, and Wertheimer was in
vited to write a handbook article on the subject as late as the 1930s.^
13 Wertheimer, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur Tatbestandsdiagnostik,11

p. 6.
14 For later discussions of Wertheimer's research, see August Messer,

"Die Bedeutung der Psychologie", (cited in part one, n. 174), pp. 203-
OS, and Max Scheler, "Ethik", Jahrbiicher der Philosophie, 2 (1914), pp.
81-118. Cf. Philipp Stein, "Tatbestandsdiagnostische Versuche bei Un-
tersuchungsgefangenen", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 52 (1909), pp.
- 253 -
The best indication of its significance, however, was a priority dispute
between Wertheimer and C.G. Jung, who developed a similar technique on
a related theoretical basis while working with patients at Eugen Bleuler's
Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich. In the end, Jung acknowledged Wertheimers
priority in a letter.1^ But he had lost the battle and won the war, as
both the term "complex" and the word association technique entered the
armamentarium of psychoanalysis. Wertheimer pursued this line of investi
gation for two more years, but then stopped for reasons still unexplained.
The years from 1905 to 1910 were a time of wandering and searching.
Supported by his father, Wertheimer travelled throughout central Europe,
doing research on alexia at the neurological clinic of Wagner von Jauregg
in Vienna, in Gads institute in Prague and later on in Frankfurt. Apparent
ly this work was intended to lead to his habilitation, but only a brief
research report was ever published.^ This may have been just as well. Al
though leading neurologists and physiologists were evidently willing to let
161-237. The handbook article is Wertheimer, "Tatbestandsdiagnostik",

in Emil Aberhalden, ed., Handbuch der biologischen Arheitsmethoden,
Sect. 6 (Berlin, 1933), pp. 1105-1111.
15 Wertheimer, "Zur Tatbestandsdiagnostik: eine Feststellung," Archiv fur

die gesamte Psychologie, 7 (1906), pp. 139-40. Jungs work is cited in
"Untersuchungen*', pp. 25, 65, 69. Jung's letter, dated 10 October 1906,
is in the Max Wertheimer papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division,
New York Public Library, Box 1, Folder 1.
16 Wertheimer, "Experimental-psychologische Analyse hirapathologischer

Erscheinungen", in Fr. Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur
experimentelle Psychologie... 1912 (Leipzig, 1913); cf. "Uber him-
pathologische Erscheinungen und ihre psychologische Analyse", lecture
to the Arztlicher Verein in Frankfurt, 20 October 1913, protocol1, in
Mimchener medizinische Wochenschrift, 5 November 1913.
- 254 -
Wertheimer do research in their institutions at his own expense, he lacked
the medical degree he would have needed to establish himself in such a
setting; and it is not immediately clear whether he would have been able
to obtain a position in philosophy with work on such problems.
Wertheimer returned to Berlin frequently in this period, staying
with the Stem family and working with his friend von Hombostel at the
Phonogramm-Archiv. The only published results of this work, a paper on the
music of the Vedda, a tribe in Ceylon, show that something had changed in
Wertheimer's thinking by 1910. Wertheimer called this music "among the
most primitive known," since it is produced without instruments and con
sists only of brief fragments of no more than two or at most three notes.
Yet it is "in principle quite different from what had previously been
assumed to typify the most primitive music." Analysis yielded not constant
repetition of melodic or structural formulae, but a variety of "definite
forms with definite structural laws" which remain constant through'
all variations of the same 'song* or fragment. Certain basic rules may
be evident, such as "no rising tone"; but within these limits variations
are possible. "We may say," Wertheimer concluded, "that a melody is not gi
ven by specific, individually determined intervals and rhythms, but is a
Gestalt whose individual parts are freely variable within characteristic
limits."^
Evidently Wertheimer had begun to seriously investigate the problem of
form. We have already shown that he had read Husserl's Logical Investigations
17 Wertheimer, "Musik der Wedda", Sammelbande der Intemationalen Musik-

gesellschaft, 11 (1910), pp. 300-09, esp. p. 306. Cf. Wertheimer,
"Max Wertheimer", p. 12.
- 255 -
on the problem of whole and part some time before and had noted that Husserl
had not sufficiently considered "the ontological aspect" of the problem.
The 1910 paper gave an indication of the alternative direction Wertheimer
wanted to take. In the same year he had the idea that would lead to his
habilitation, and eventually to the rise of Gestalt theory.
b. Kurt Koffka
Kurt Koffka 's acquaintance with both Berlin culture and Berlin psy-
18
chology was more immediate and of longer duration than Wertheimers.
B o m there in 1886, Koffka came from a family of lawyers, including his
father, Emil Koffka; his younger brother, Friedrich, became a judge. His
mother, b o m Luise Levy, was of Jewish descent, but listed herself as
Protestant - an important distinction in the upper-bourgeois society of
the imperial capital. Koffka's upbringing was that of a thoroughly cosmopo
litan Bildungsburger. He was taught English by an English governess, sent
to the Wilhelmsgymnasium, one of the best-known schools in the city, and
later perfected his English by spending the academic year 1904-05 at the
University of Edinburgh. He remained a lifelong anglophile. Influenced
largely by his mother's brother, a biologist, Koffka became interested in
18 The following account rests primarily upon information from Molly

Harrower-Erikson, "Kurt Koffka", American Journal of Psychology,
55 (1942), pp. 278-81, and Grace M. Heider, "Koffka, Kurt", in Da-
vid Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
(New York, 1968), vol. 8, pp. 435-38. See also Molly Harrower,
"Koffka, Kurt", Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 3: 1941-
1945 (New York, 1973), pp. 428-30, and Wolfgang Metzger, "Koffka,
Kurt", Neue deutsche Biographie, vol. 12 (Berlin, 1980), pp. 417-18.
- 256 -
philosophy at an early age and enrolled in that subject when he entered
the University of Berlin in 1903. Though he began his studies unter Alois
Riehl, he changed to Stumpf and psychology after his return from Edinburgh
because, he later stated, of his "resistance to idealistic philosophy;

19
I was too realistically minded to be satisfied with pure abstractions".
After hearing Stumpf's lecture in the winter semester of 1906-07,
Koffka immediately put into practice the conception of psychology as "the
study of daily life raised to a science" by studying his own color-weak
ness. He carried out this work in the physiological laboratory of Willi-

20
bald Nagel, thus also beginning the physiological side of his training.
The psychological side was his dissertation research on rhythm. This was
an outgrowth of Stumpf *s seminar on that topic held in the summer of 1906.
The work was completed in 1908 and published the next year. Koffka's task,
assigned to him by Stumpf, was to determine whether rhythm could be elicit
ed visually as aurally. Koffka achieved this by projecting figures such
as circles or lines onto a screen and systematically varying the interval
between projections by means of a clever arrangement of electrical circuits.
Reaction times and other objective data were gathered, and the sub
jects' accompanying movements, such as foot tapping, carefully monitored;
but the primary data were self-observations. Since Koffka used more than
twenty subjects, not all of whom were practiced observers, he distinguished
19 Kurt Koffka, "The Ontological Status of Value: A Dialogue", in Horace

M. Kallen und Sidney Hook, eds., American Philosophy Today and Tomor
row (New York, 1935; reprinted 1968), p. 274.
20 Koffka, "Untersuchungen an einem protonomalen System", Zeitschrift fur

Sinnesphysiologie (1908), cited in Harrower-Erikson, "Kurt Koffka." p.
279.
- 257 -
between "better" subjects, who "limit themselves to retaining and reporting
their experience as it appears to them," and "the other type," whose state
ments "are no longer representations of the original experiences but contain
all sorts of conclusions about the stimuli on which they are based." Among
the "better" subjects were Hans Rupp, Erich von Hombostel und Ademar Gelb.
"Particularly extensive data" were obtained from Mira Klein, daughter of

21
the publisher of the George circle, whom Koffka subsequently married.
Koffka drew two conclusions from his research. The first was that
"in general association had no perceptible influence on the course of the ex
periments," although very strong associations, such as melodies, did occasional
ly occur. The second was that "grouping", determined or structured by an
"accent", was of fundamental importance for the experience of rhythm, no mat
ter how it was elicited. The current theory of rhythm stressed kinaesthetic
sensations. Koffka argued that this theory does not explain the role of
grouping, but only shifts the problem to another level of explanation. In
any case, kinaesthetic responses such as foot-tapping and involuntary move-

22
ments sometimes occurred before, and sometimes after, verbal responses.
Both Koffka and Herbert Langfeld later recalled that Stumpf's students
were discussing EhrenfelsT concept of Gestalt qualities at the time; it was,
in fact, the seminar topic for the winter of 1906-07. One of Koffkas sub-
23
jects used, or rather slightly misused, the term in a response. We have
21 Koffka, "ExperimentalUntersuchungen zur Lehxe vom Rhythmus",Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 52 (1909), pp. 1-109, esp. p. 16.
22 Koffka, "Rhythmus", pp. 53 ff.
23 Langfeld, "Stumpf's Introduction'", p. 55; Koffka,"BeginningsofGe

stalt Theory", pp. a & b; Chronik der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat
- 258 -
seen, however, that Stumpf was opposed to this terminology. Koffka adopt
ed the term "unitary form" (Einheitsform), a compromise between Husserl's
"moment of unity" and Stumpf's "form." This he supposed to be "the psy
chical entity which corresponds to the function of summation [Zusammenfas-
sung] when objective relations exist among the summated parts." This formu
lation was perfectly consistent with Stumpf's views. The structuring "ac
cent," however, is something lying behind the phenomena, though evoked by
them, "the expression of a psychical function accompanied by a special feel
ing of being active .... Further analysis will ... perhaps reduce it into
a number of components." Koffka had obviously seen and recognized the problem
of form and was casting about for ways of grappling with it in terms ac
ceptable to his elders. As he later remembered, he "tried to put as much

25
of these ideas into my dissertation as the master would permit."
It was probably not this work, however, but his research on color
blindness which brought Koffka his first assistantship, under Johannes von
Kries in Freiburg. The reception he had from the physiologist is not known,
but the philosophical atmosphere for psychological research under Heinrich
Rickert could not have been the same as it was in Berlin. Though there was
a modest psychological "department" in the philosophical seminar, founded by
Hugo Munsterberg in 1889 and run in 1909 by a Privatdozent, Jonas Cohn, with
zu Berlin, 20 (1906), pp. 65-67. The subject's response was as follows:

n'A stroke came with every [flash of] light, but the consciousness
of the whole Gestalt-quality was always the main thing. The structure
was always there, it was only filled out. '" Koffka, "Rhythmus", p.57.
24 Koffka, "Rhythmus", pp. 104-05.
25 Koffka, "Beginnings of Gestalt Theory", p. "b".
- 259 -
Rickert's formal support, Koffka may have decided that this was not the
26
suitable place from which to launch a scientific career. In any event,
he remained only one semester in Freiburg before moving to Oswald Kulpe's
Wurzburg institute in the summer of 1909.
While in Freiburg, Koffka became acquainted with the independent phi
losopher Fritz Mauthner, author of a conventionalist critique of language
strongly influenced by Mach and Nietzsche, among others. Mauthner maintain
ed that neither a calculus of symbols nor a framework of concepts can give
us certainty about the nature of things. Language is not an abstract
system, but "only a process, an infinitely complex activity," which has
developed historically as a product of practical human needs; and "a people

27
knows no other reason, no other logic than that of its language." Koffka
apparently saw in this opponent of formalist idealism a suitable confidant
for his worries about the future of experimental psychology and about his
own future as well. In birthday greetings he sent to Mauthner from Wurz
burg in May of 1909, he wrote:
Unfortunately the situation of psychology is quite sad at the

moment. As Kulpe informed me, the Prussian government is be
having scandalously in its new appointments. It is said that
a psychologist will noteven be named to Ebbinghaus * chair. So
the complaints of Rickert and company are ridiculous! By the way,
have you heard the new definition of psychology that Windelband
has given? 'Psychology is the art of winding watches and proving
in tables that something occurs to someone somewhat later than
to someone else' or something similar! The established philoso
pher has let this be printed recently, and now humanity finally
26 On the Freiburg institute, see table one, above, p. 26.
27 Fritz Mauthner, Die Sprache (Frankfurt a.M., 1906), pp. 30-31, 86.
For Mauthner's account of the origins of his critique of language,
see his Erinnerungen I. Prager Jugendiahre (Munich, 1918), esp. p. 210.
- 260 -
28
knows what psychologists can do with time.
Obviously the research atmosphere was different in Wurzburg, and
Koffka plunged into the work of Kulpe and his students on the higher mental
processes with a series of experiments on association by similarity, which
later grew into a full-length monograph on imagery (Vorstellungen). One
of his subjects was Kulpe's assistant Karl Biihler, whose polemic with Wundt
had occurred only the year before. It must'-have seemed at the time like a
conflict between old and new. Koffka*s decision to work with the Wurzburg
school at just this time can thus be seen as a conscious effort to align
himself with a new "master". Koffka wrote to Mauthner that he got along "fa
mously" with Kulpe. When he finally published his results in 1912, he
dedicated the book to Kulpe "in grateful remembrance of summer semester 1909,"
thanking him both for "scientific stimulation" and for "valuable personal
influences which made working with him unforgettable." The tone of his
acknowledgement to Stumpf was somewhat different. He recognized Stumpf as
his first teacher, but noted that he new preferred "to solve many a problem
29
in a way other than that which I learned from him."
Koffka *s very personal engagement in his work is shown by the warmth
of his thanks to his subjects, not only for their sacrifice of time - they
went through two sittings of two hours per week each - but also for "the
trust" which they showed in the experimenter, leading to the formation of
"close personal relationships."^ This turned out to be true in a number of
28 Koffka to Mauthner, 22 May 1909, Leo Baeck Institute Library, Mauthner

Collection.
29 Koffka to Mauthner, 22 November 1909, Mauthner Collection; Koffka,

Zur Analyse der Vorstellungen und ihrerGesetze (Leipzig, 1912), p. vi.
30 Koffka, Vorstellungen, p. 26.
- 261 -
ways. In addition to Buhler and Mira Koffka, Koffka's nine subjects in
cluded a minister, Wilhelm Stahlin, with whom he founded a journal for
the psychology of religion, and Robert M. Ogden, who later was instrumental
in bringing Koffka to the United States and in publicizing Gestalt theory
there.
Koffka's work shows that the methods of the later Wurzburg school
persisted even after Wundt and Titchener had attacked their viability. Koffka
instructed his subjects to receive the stimuli, usually words, as passively
as possible, and to wait for a presentation. If the presentation was a word,
they were to react with that word; if not, they were to say "yes", and then
describe their experiences. Koffka admitted that two tasks were actually
combined here which could influence one another, but he defended the me
thods of the Wurzburg school as the only ones available. Progress would not
be made by waiting for new ones, and it was important to combat the danger
of "mechanizing the mental" resulting from overconcentration on the achieve
ments of mechanical memory. In any case, he contended, the total of 944
observations he had obtained gave him a far better data base for statements
about this venerable philosophical topic than the armchair observations typical
ly invoked by philosophers. It was also sufficient to provide a far richer
classification than had been obtained up to that time; Koffka discovered six
different types of imagery as opposed to the three types listed by Ebbing-

31
haus. Ebbinghaus, he said, had simply not observed enough.
Koffka, like his Wurzburg coworkers, plainly regarded the statements
of philosophers as propositions to be tested experimentally; in this he was
very much a member of the new generation of experimenting psychologists. His
31 Koffka, Vorstellungen, pp. 21 ff., 191-92, n. 1, 195.
- 262 -
chief target was Hume's conception of images as pale copies of sensations,
which he derided as "popular psychology." His findings, he claimed, supported
Husserl's contention that images can appear just as vividly in consciousness as
sensations. Although he retained Kiilpe's designation of images as "central
ly excited sensations," Koffka insisted that they are "real in a different
way" from sensations or percepts. In this he agreed with Mach, but refused
to attribute the difference to different directions of attention, as Mach
did; instead, he contended, perception delivers the material from which
images arise. This was consistent with Husserl's general model of ideation
as an intentional act, the ordering of images in earlier experience rather
than mechanical reproduction. Koffka acknowledged, however, that the problem

32
of how this ordering comes into being had not yet been solved.
A similar enrichment of classification was brought by Koffka's se
cond type of finding, which he presented vividly to the fourth congress of
the "Society for Experimental Psychology" in 1910.
I ask a number of people the question: 'what is the lightest city?'

No one knows; the answer is 'Agram is the lightest city. My
further question, why, also remains unanswered, so I have to
explain: 'because it only weighs a gram.' Now I ask, what is
the largest city?' Again I have to supply the answer myself:
'London.' This time, as well, no one can tell me the reason,
although it is so obvious, namely that London has 6,000,000 people.^
Koffka attributed the success of such tricks to "latent attitudes" (latente
Einstellungen), subconscious tendencies to respond to subsequent tasks in
32 Koffka, Vorstellungen, pp. 195, 238, 243, 253 ff., 272-72, 279.
33 Koffka, "iiber latente Einstellung", in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Be-

richt uher den 4. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1910
(Leipzig, 1911), p. 239.
- 263 -
the manner prescribed by the first. This was a variation upon both the
"attitudes" already studied in Wurzburg by Watt and upon Ach's "determining
tendencies." The difference from the former was that "latent attitudes"
often worked against the consciously set attitudes determined by the task;
the difference from the latter was that there was no element of will or
34
direction involved.
All of this was very much in the spirit of the Wurzburg school, and
the results were assembled with zeal and industry, even if they were not par
ticularly original. Unfortunately, there was no place for Koffka in Wurz
burg. In the middle of his year there, Kulpe left to take up a professorship
in Bonn, taking Biihler with him as his assistant. Kulpe arranged to have
Koffka kept on for one more semester, but his successor Karl Marbe made it
clear that he had promised the position to someone of his own choice for the
following semester. An obvious alternative was the commercial academy
in Frankfurt, where Stumpf's former assistant Friedrich Schumann had succeed
ed Marbe. Koffka remained in Frankfurt three semesters, but habilitated as
Frivatdozent in "experimental psychology and pedagogy" in 1911 in nearby
Giessen under August Messer, also a partisan of the Wurzburg school. The
stage seemed to be set for a routine academic career in a provincial univer
sity, with the possibility of a call to an associate or a full professorship
sometime in the future. In the meantime, however, during his first semester
in Frankfurt, Koffka had had the meeting with Max Wertheimer which he later
35
called "one of the crucial moments of my life."
34 Koffka, "Latente Einstellung", p. 241; cf. Vorstellungen, chap. 3, esp.

pp. 319 ff., 334 ff.
35 Koffka, Principles, p. 53. For the designation of Koffka's official

title in GieBen, see Hans-Georg Burger, "Anfange und Bedeutung der expe-
- 264 -
c. Wolfgang Kohler
An account of Wolfgang Kohler's ancestry reads like that of a German

36
professor of the early nineteenth century. He was b o m in 1887 in Reval,
Estonia (today Talinn, U.S.S.R.). His father, Franz Eduard, then director
of the German-language Gymnasium in that city, was a minister's son who
came originally from Thuringia and studied at the universities in Jena and
Gottingen, receiving the doctorate in philology from the latter in 1865.
His father's brother, Ulrich Kohler, was professor of ancient history in
Berlin. Kohler's mother, Wilhelmine Girgensohn, a minister's daughter, came
from a long line of "Baltic Germans", who had settled in the region in the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries but had never given up their
strong sense of cultural patriotism. In 1893 the family moved to Wolfenbuttel
rimentellen Psychologie in Giessen," Giessener Universitatsblatter,

1975, Heft 1, pp. 89-89.
36 The information on Kohler's ancestry comes from the following sources:

Wilhelm Lenz, ed., Deutsch-baltisches biographisches Lexikon 1710-1960
(Cologne and Vienna, 1970), pp. 242-45, 398; Florentine Mutherlich,
"Kohler, Wilhelm", and Rudolf Bergius, "Kohler, Wolfgang", in Neue
deutsche Biographie, vol. 12 (Berlin, 1980), pp. 301-02 & 302-04,
resp. Other useful biographical articles are Mary Henle, "Wolfgang Koh
ler", Yearbook of the American Philosophical Society, 1968, pp. 139
45, reprinted in Mary Henle, ed., The Selected Papers of Wolfgang
Kohler (New York, 1971), pp. 3-10;-and Solomon E. Asch, "Wolfgang Koh
ler", American Journal of Psychology, 81 (1968), pp. 110-19. Carl B.
Zuckermann and Hans Wallach, 'Kohler, Wolfgang", in David Sills,
ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York,
1968), vol. 8, pp. 438-42, is useful in other ways but has little
biographical material; Philip W. Cummings, "Kohler, Wolfgang", in
Paul Edwards, ed., Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York, 1967), vol 4,
pp. 354-60, is also helpful in other ways, but the biographical por
tion contains many errors.
- 265 -
in Saxony, where Franz Kohler became director of the Gymnasium. Wolfgang
grew up and attended school there, graduating in 1905. After studying
philosophy, history and natural science in Tubingen for a year, he went
to Bonn, where he made his first acquaintence with experimental psychology
under Benno Erdmann. The decisive stage in his academic career, however,
began with his move to Berlin in the fall of 1907. In addition to working
in Stumpfs institute, he continued to hear lectures in natural science,

37
this time from Walther Nernst and Max Planck. His dissertation research
was an attempt to combine the physical and psychological aspects of his
training.
Many theories had been presented to explain the role of the tympanic
membrane in hearing, especially in the fixation of tones. Ernst Mach had
attempted unsuccessfully in the early 1870s to determine the effects of
sound vibrations on the living ear by introducing sound through a tube
and making observations with the help of a microscopic mirror. In The
Analysis of Sensations he suggested that an indirect procedure using re
flected light might achieve the desired results, and Kohler took up this
38
idea. With the help of Stumpfs son, a medical student, and of a cooperat
ing physician from the medical faculty, Kohler had a tiny mirror placed di
rectly onto his own ear drum and secured with adhesive material. A room
in the Berlin institute was then set up so that a steady stream of light
37 Kohler names these men and Alois Riehl as his teachers in the autobio
graphy attached to his dissertation, "Akustische Untersuchungen I",
Phil. Diss. Berlin, 1909. Subsequent citations will be to the published
version, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 54 (1909), pp. 241-89.
38 Mach, Analysis, p. 279, n. 1; Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen I",

pp. 243 ff.
- 266 -
from a stationary source could be directed at the inserted mirror, then re-
39
fleeted to yet another mirror and from there to a recording apparatus.
The curves that Kohler thus obtained revealed an unexpected pattern.
Apparently the ears response to particular pitches corresponded quite close
ly to its response to spoken vowels. Kohler tested this phenomenologically,
presenting some prelirm'naTy findings in the second portion of his dissertation.
He continued the work in Berlin, serving as anunpaid assistant to take ad
vantage of the institute's superb collection of turning forks and other acoustic
al apparatus. Selecting thirty forks covering a range of four octaves, Koh
ler sounded them each fifteen times in random order for three subjects,
who were not informed of the purpose of the experiment, and asked them to
judge the tones for their similarity to vowel sounds. Other subjects from
various countries were brought in for less extensive testing, and some of
the results were rechecked using a Stem tone variator. The correspondence
was confirmed. Host surprising of all was that the pitches judged most
often to be pure or unmixed vowels in German formed a series of ascending
octaves, from "u" to "i".^
Kohler made the radical implications of his findings quite clear.
Helmholtz had discovered relationships similar to these years before, with
39 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen I", According to a later account,

Kohler demonstrated that the mirror was in place, and also that he
had a sense of humor, by appearing in the office of the cooperating
physician with the thread which had been used to secure the mirror
hanging from the other ear. Hans-Lukas Teuber, "Wolfgang Kohler zum
Gedenken", Psychologische Forschung, 31 (1967), p. vi.
40 Kohler, "tiber akustische Prinzipalqualitaten", in Friedrich Schumann,

ed., Bericht iiber den 4. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie...
1910 (Leipzig, 1911), pp. 229-30; cf. Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchun-
gen II," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 58 (1910), pp. 59-140, sects.
2 & 3, esp. p. 130.
- 267 -
some differences in the higher frequencies. Yet he continued to main
tain that since physical tones possess only frequency and amplitude, the
tones we hear should be described only in terms of the corresponding cha
racteristics, pitch and loudness. Kohler agreed with the physical side of
Helmholtz's theory, but denied its simple extension into psychology. The
vowel qualities, he claimed, are "not qualities of the tonal region along
side others"; they are "the qualities which it has at all." In fact,
knowledge of a tone's vowel character is necessary to produce a judgment

41
of pitch. Stumpf, too, had expressed dissatisfaction with the concepts
of pitch and loundnessas exclusive theoretical tools; but he continued
to present the series of tone sensations as continuous and linear, as
Helmholtz had. Kohler's vowel qualities, however, seemed to mark points
of discontinuity, like the boundaries between the regions of the visual
spectrum as seen in an ordinary prism. He drew an analogy here to G.E.
Muller's conception of the "quality series" for colors. The series of

l
judged nuances between "pure" blue and "pure" red, for example, is con
tinuous and linear, as is the corresponding series from red to yellow. But
the two together are best represented diagrammatically not as a single
straight line, but as two lines forming an angle about the "point" of
42
"pure" red. In the case of vowel qualities, a tone descending between
the frequencies for "a" and "o", for example, would at first be judged
to contain more of "a" and less of "o" tip to a specifiable midpoint, from
which it would contain progressively more of "o", without containing any-
41 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen II," pp. 98, 102.
42 Cf. Muller, "Zur Psychophysik der Gesichtsempfindungen" (cited in part

two, n. 32), vol. 10 (1896), esp. pp. 23 ff., 35 ff., 56.
- 268 -
A3
thing of "u", the vowel located below "o" on the frequency series.
Such analogies notwithstanding, Kohler accepted the theory of
specific sense energies, because he wished to retain the fundamental prin
ciple behind it. He believed he had shown for audition what Hering had
shown long before for vision - that the world of psychical qualities is
not a mirror image of the physical world:
precisely the laws which determine a phenomenal system as

system, the ordinal or formal characteristics which is possesses,
deviate so greatly from those of the adequate stimulus system
that, leaving aside the incompatibility of content, in general
only a complex function can represent the relations between
the systems of order here and there.
The point requires emphasis, Kohler said, because it is "ignored by a

44
theory of knowledge which is still widely held." He did not specify
precisely the theory of knowledge he meant. His use of the term "complex
function" implies a Machian point of view on the relation of the physic
al to the psychical, but the phrase 'incompatibility of content", rather
than, say, "different point of view," implies something closer to Stumpf*s
critical realism. In fact, Kohler cited Mach, Stumpf and Brentano to
gether in support of his attempt to replace "the meager concept of pitch" and
45
to do justice to "the actual content" of perceived tones. For this pur
pose, Hering*s heuristic phenomenalism was a sufficient common denominator.
Kohler found, however, that his teacher had not gone far enough
in their common campaign. The concept Stumpf introduced to supplement
pitch was that of "tone color", the effect of the combination of fundamental
43 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen II," pp. 98-99.
44 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen II," p. 112.
45 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen II," p. 111.
- 269 -
and overtones. Stumpf treated "tone color" and "clang color" - the phe
nomena exemplified by the different sounds -we hear when the same pitch
is sounded on different musical instruments - as complementary sides of
the same phenomenon. In both cases, it was simply a matter of the partial
tones noticed or not noticed at particular pitches. The data from the
measurements on Kohler's ear drum confirmed the presence and impressive
ness of tone color. Low bass tones, for example, were not heard as such,
but seemed to consist entirely of their color; "partial tones which were not
noticeable in higher registers practically filled the curve, and only strong
46
spikes were evident for still lower tones."
According to Stumpf's view, "clang colors" should vary in the same
way as tone colors; and the intensity and interval relations of the partial
tones must be constant if the sounds are to have the same color. Instead,
Kohler found, "these colors retain a recognizable similarity, in some cases
despite a substantial shift of all the components." The sound of a tenor
horn, for example, remains more or less constant up and down the scale,
despite significant differences in the relative intensity of the partial
tones. Kohler found himself forced to disagree with "my respected teacher,
without whose instruction I would not known how to work in acoustics at
all." He later conclueded that "the physiological correlate of pitch and
the physiological correlate of tone intensity are not two sides of the same
process"; the latter are probably peripherally, the former centrally located.
He recognized that accepting this distinction would result in theoretical
complications at first, but asserted that a correct formulation of the psy-
46 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen I," p. 284.
- 270 -
47
chological situation outweighed this disadvantage.
Kohler's "clang colors" were quite similar to the so-called "inter
val colors" on which Mach based much of his discussion of tone sensation.
The only difference was that Mach had treated mainly the relations among
tones in melodies or chords, while Kohler limited himself to the relations
of the partials of single tones. Kohler acknowledged the similarity by
using the terms interchangably. Clearly, both "clang" and "interval colors"
were complex qualities, as Hans Cornelius and Felix Krueger defined them,
since they depended not upon individual tones or partials but on their rela
tions. Kohler saw this, too, but carefully distinguished them from the so-
called "difference tones" to which Krueger attributed complex qualities
in his polemics against Stumpf. He remarked that he had proceeded "slowly
and cautiously" in proving the existence of "interval colors", because "much
has been written somewhat hastily about complex qualities, and in such a
way that one must look about for things which do not fall under this cate-
,,48
gory."
Kohler's findings forced Stumpf to defend his theory, and then
to do further research of his own in order "to clear up this important problem
49
of phenomenology." Subsequent measurements by others yielded values some-
47 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen I," pp. 289-90; "Akustische Untersu-

chungen," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur
experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912 (Leipzig, 1912), p. 153.
48 For Mach*s treatment of "interval colors," see Analysis,chap. 13, esp.

pp. 286 ff. Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen I, ppT 281-82. Kohler
later denied that he had intended to attack Krueger directly with this
remark; see "Akustische Untersuchungen II," p. 79 n. However, it is dif
ficult to see whom else he might have meant.
49 Stumpf, "Autobiography", pp. 409-10. See also Stumpfs discussion con

tribution to Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen", Bericht uber den 5.
- 271 -
what different from those obtained by Kohler, but confirmed the
existence of vowel qualities. Decades later, however, the theoretic
al issues were still not satisfactorily resolved.^0 Important here
is what this episode indicates about Kohlers scientific socialization.
Though he had demonstrated a remarkable degree of intellectual indepen
dence, he had carried it off with diplomacy and a suitable show of respect
for his teacher. He plunged immediately into what seemed to be a growing
area of research, borrowing an observer from another laboratory and
reviewing much of the literature in acoustics for the Zeitschrift fur
Psychologie. His use of the term "wir Akustiker" - "we specialists
in acoustics" - in one of his congress discussions indicated both his
degree of commitment to the specialty and his sense of being engaged
in it as a fully equal colleague. There is every indication that he was
treated this way by Stumpf as well.
Moreover, Kohler had shown his ability to combine physical and psycho
logical observation in the service of an unambiguously psychological goal.
He explained his rationale for doing this at the beginning of his second
acoustical article:
The reader of this essay is asked to accept a small physical pre

liminary investigation. The objective processes which evoke sen
sations have no special interest for modern physics, which strives
Kongress ..., pp. 155-56; "fiber neuere Untersuchungen zur Tonlehre",

in Fr. Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 6. Kongress fur experimentel
le Psychologie... 1914 (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 305-48, and "Die Struk-
tur der Vokale", Sitzungsberichte der Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-
hist. Cl., 1918.
50 For a discussion of subsequent research, see Boring, Sensation and

Perception, pp. 372 ff.
- 272 -
as far as possible to lay aside. problems carried over from

anthropomorphism. Especially since everyone is convinced that
the laws which are valid for these processes are special cases
of far more comprehensive connections, the physicist has right
ly turned away from these and toward others which have decisive
significance for his system. In the meantime, the psychologist's
need for knowledge of the physical conditions which are involved
in his experiments has only increased. For the reason just gi
ven, he must often help himself; and he can all the more readily
become a physicist for the moment the more he is convinced that
nothing hinders his science more than the treatment of the ob
jects of consciousness as physical objects, or . as photographs of
them.51
Apparently Kohler had read Max Plancks Leiden lecture and develop
ed his own position on the issues raised in it. He did not claim that physic
al investigations could decide psychological issues; in fact, his allegiance
to phenomenological methods was as strong as anyone's. About his contention
that vowel qualities are sui generis, for example, he said that "an assertion
like ours cannot be proven at all. In the end, one must simply listen
52
and form a judgment of his own about it." Yet these vowel qualities
were precisely the sorts of "invariants" that Planck had presented as the
highest goals of physical theory.
Clearly, each of these young scientists had responded positively,
though highly individually, to Carl Stumpf's call to "lay hands on" psycho
logical reality as a way of approaching philosophy. The social setting
of their response was not limited exclusively to the suite of rooms in the
DorotheenstraBe in Berlin, or to the corresponding apartments in Wurzburg
or Frankfurt. Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler all came from the milieu which
nurtured most of Germany's academic scientists. Each of them could say that
51 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen II," p,.59.
52 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen II", p. 101.
- 273 -
he had been well-prepared socially and financially to begin a successful
scientific career in the German universities, without the problems and pres
sures connected with upward mobility. During their university studies,
each had obtained a broad background in both philosophy and natural science -
Wertheimer and Koffka in physiology, Kohler in physics and physical chemistry.
Most important, however, was that all three of these youthful scien
tists had mastered at least two of the available methods for "laying hands
on" psychological reality, including Stumpf*s preferred technique of control
led self-observation, or experimental phenomenology, and had adopted the
epistemological presuppositions involved. In no case was it merely a ques
tion of practicing forms of behavior in a purely external manner, of pupils
imitating the master. Instead it was a matter of intense personal commit
ment to the activity of scientific investigation as concretely experienced
in a specific set of social settings. Each of the three made a significant
gesture revealing the personal nature of his involvement, from Wertheimer's
reading of the Zeitschrift fur Psychologie to Koffka and Kohler's experiment
ing on themselves. In addition, each had enthusiastically participated in
psychological science as a cooperative effort by an elite of trained ob
servers, a collaboration which could lead to life-long relationships. Thus
they were socially and intellectually prepared at a variety of levels for
the tasks they had set themselves.
Here, however, was where the genuine ambivalences began. Wertheimer,
Koffka and Kohler experienced to the full the joys which personal involve
ment in scientific investigation in psychology could bring. But they also
experienced quite directly the inability of prevailing psychological theory,
particularly that of their common teacher Stumpf, to deal with the facts that
- 274 -
phenomenological methods were yielding. Kohler chose the route of respect
ful opposition from within; Koffka learned what he could from Stumpf, then
carried on the search elsewhere. Wertheimer did both of these things, and
then began to think further independently. When the three men camp together
in Frankfurt, they were ready for something new; and in an important sense,
they created it together.
2. The Birth of Gestalt Theory: Max Wertheimer in Frankfurt 1910-1914
Though no documentation has yet been found for it, the story has been
told so often that it has become impossible to leave it out. While on the
way from Vienna to the Rhineland for a vacation in the autumn of 1910, the
story goes, Max Wertheimer had an idea for an experiment on apparent move
ment when he saw alternating lights on a railway signal. He got off the train
in Frankfurt, bought a toy stroboscope and began constructing figures to
test the idea in his hotel room. He then went to the psychological insti
tute at the commercial academy in the city and spoke with Wolfgang Kohler about
the plan. Kohler obtained space for him in the laboratory and the use of
Schumann's tachistoscope, and also served as the primary subject. Koffka and
his wife joined them later. With these experiments, it is said, Gestalt
theory began.^
53 Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer," p. 13; cf. Newman, "Max Wertheimer,"

pp. 431-32. In an interview with the author conducted on October 2,
1976, Prof. Newman could not recall whether he had heard the story from
Wertheimer directly, or from a third party.
- 275 -
a. The Setting
The experiments took place in an unusual institutional and social
setting. The "Academy of Social and Commercial Sciences" in Frankfurt was
a new establishment, founded in 1900. Private interests and the city govern
ment collaborated in it from the beginning. This was a new form of support
for higher education in Germany, and a correspondingly progressive spirit
was evident when the first rector, Heinrich Morf, decided not to make any
distinctions of rank among the members of the faculty. Another sign of
this spirit was the appointment of the experimenting psychologist Karl Marbe
to the first philosophy professorship in 1904. Rooms for a psychological
institute were already planned by this time, with the support of the Carl
Christian Jiigel Foundation, which also endowed the professorship. The
institute was officially opened in 1906, and laboratory courses began in
1908. Circumstantial evidence indicates that the institute was well fi
nanced. Later accounts refer to its "superior apparatus," and its personnel
included two assistants,one "budgetary" (planmaBig) and the other "extra-
budgetary" (auBerplanmafiig) but continuously renewed.^
By 1910, all signs pointed to further expansion in Frankfurt. In
that year, when Friedrich Schumann came from Zurich to replace Marbe, a
second chair for systematic philosophy and history of philosophy was set up
54 On the history of the academy and of the psychological institute,see

Richard Wachsmuth, Die Griindung der Universitat Frankfurt (Frankfurt
a.M., 1929), esp. pp. 47 , 50, 53; for additional background, see
Paul Kluke, Die Stiftungsuniversitat Frankfurt am Main 1914-1932
(Frankfurt a.M., 1972). The information about the assistantship comes
from the interview with Prof. Edwin Rausch (cited in part one, n. 172).
- 276 -
with support from the Speyer Foundation. Its first occupant was Hans Cornelius,
the critic of Stumpf's doctrine of unnoticed sensations. Although he did
not participate directly in experimental work, Cornelius frequently engaged
in lively discussions with the experimenters; he later recalled benefiting
particularly from his talks with Wertheimer.^ With this the constellation
was nearly complete. We have only to add Adhemar Gelb, who came to Frankfurt
in 1911 to replace Koffka; Koffka returned regularly from nearby GieBen to
talk with his friends and to hear Wertheimer lecture. In the beginning,
however, there were only the four of them - Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka and
Mira Koffka. As Koffka later recalled: "it began with Wertheimer and Kohler
in Frankfurt with me as a third; we liked each other personally, had the same
kind of enthusiasms, same kind of backgrounds, and saw each other daily dis
cussing everything under the sun."^ It was in this well-nourished, close-knit
atmosphere that Gestalt theory was born.
b. The Gestalt orientation emerges
Though the experiments they conducted together were completed by
the spring of 1911, Wertheimer did not submit the completed paper for public
ation until January 29, 1912. By that time he had already published another
paper, on concepts of number in primitive peoples, based to a great extent
55 Wachsmuth, Griindung, pp. 55 ff.; Cornelius, "Hans Cornelius," in Ray

mond Schmidt, ed., Die Philosophic der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen,
vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1921), p. 86.
56 Koffka to Edwin G. Boring, 22 April 1930, E.G. Boring papers, Harvard

University Archives. It is not clear why Koffka failed to mention his
first wife in this context.
- 277 -
on research, done in Berlin. The paper on motion is generally cited as the
birthr-piece of Gestalt theory, and rightly so, for reasons to be discussed
below. However, for the style and substance of Gestalt theory as Wert
heimer originally developed it, the first paper was at least as significant.
As Michael Wertheimer has put it, "the basic Gestalt orientation seems to
be clearly there," though "there was as yet no self-conscious, self-styled
Gestalt theory.""^ What, then, was that orientation?
Wertheimer made the methodological side of it clear at the outset.
"It is insufficient," he asserted, "to ask what numbers and operations of
our mathematics the peoples of other cultures have .... The question must
be: what units of thought do they have in this field? What tasks for think
ing? How does their thinking approach them? What achievements, what capa
bilities are required?" Approaching the thought of so-called "primitive"
peoples from a Western standpoint prevents us from answering or even asking
these questions; it "blocks the way to a true knowledge of the actually

58
given." This opposition to ethnocentrism and the phenomenalistic alterna
tive offered to it were characteristic of the developing discipline of
ethnology, or cultural anthropology, as it came to be called in the United
States. Wertheimer drew heavily upon ethnographers reports, and also upon
57 Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer," loc. cit. For an earlier recognition of

the significance of this paper, see A.S. Luchins, "The Place of Gestalt
Theory in American Psychology," in S. Ertel, L. Kemmler & M. Stadler,
eds., Gestalttheorie in der moderaen Psychologie (Darmstadt, 1975), pp.
21-44.
58 Max Wertheimer, "fiber das Dehken der Naturvolker I: Zahlen und Zahlge-
bilde," Zeitscfarift fur Psychologie, 60 (1912), pp. 321-78; repr. in
Drei Abhandlungen zur Gestalttheorie (Erlangen, 1925), pp. 106-61; abr.
trans. in W.D. Ellis, A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology (New York,
1938), pp. 265-73. Citations are to the German reprint, here p. 107.
- 278 -
conversations with his friend von Hombostel and with Richard Thumwald,
59
one of the founders of the new discipline in Germany.
Wertheimer recognized that purely linguistic examples were insuffi
cient to get at the "givenness" of quantities for primitive peoples; active
involvement in their lives was required. He was therefore careful to say
that his purpose was only to raise and illustrate problems for research,
not to offer theoretical solutions. Nonetheless, he was able to offer a
vast array of examples showing that the Western, algebraic concept of number,
epitomized in John Locke's assertion that all of mathematics is reducible
to two concepts, one and +1, was inadequate to account for the qualita
tive richness of the numerical life of so-called "primitives", or of "na
turally thinking people" in general.
Examples of the difference could be very simple: one horse plus
one horse equals two horses; one person plus one person equals two people;
but one horse plus one person may equal a rider. A more extreme case was
that of the Moa islanders, who use different designations for the numbers
from one to nine, according to the objects involved. However, the difference
went further than this; it was not always a matter of applying arithmetic
in different ways. A builder goes in search of pieces of wood for a house.
"One can count them. Or, one can go with an image of the house in ones
head and get the pieces of wood that are needed. One has a group image
[Gruppengebilde] of the posts, which is quite concretely related to the form
of the house." Similarly, "the boat builder does not think of the number,
but the arrangement, form and direction - there the end, there that piece -
59 Wertheimer, "Denken der Naturvolker," pp. 107-08, n. 2.
- 279 -
and has a total image [Gesamtvorstellung] of the whole." ^
In such cases, Wertheimer maintained, we are not dealing with
counting at all in the Western sense, but with "number forms," entities
which are "less abstract than our numbers but fulfill analogous functions
... logically a middle thing" between Gestalt qualities and concepts.***
This kind of thinking, characterized by "the preponderance of form," often
determines the handling of quantities; objects are seen and counted accor
ding to their place and role in such functional units. Two eyes in one
head are seen as two, but notnecessarily a table and a plate. It is not
always possible to divide such forms arbitrarily into countable pieces,
as ought to be the case if the algebraic concept of number were applicable
in every case. Consider the following example:
I break a stick in two. One approach says, I now have 'two'.

(Two what? That's immaterial; I have two - new - units.) The
arithmetic makes a jump: first there is one, a stick, then there
are two fragments, and between the first and second state of
affairs there is a gap which is ignored. This becomes particular
ly clear if it is not a stick but a spear: the result is not
two x, but perhaps a piece of a spear (with the tip) and a bit
of wood (the rest of the shaft). This other orientation says
"two" only if there are two genuine pieces, two parts, not two
'units.' (I go not from one to two in this case, but from a per
fectly functional spear to a useless, broken one, or no spear at
all.)52
Psychologically speaking, Wertheimer concluded, it is "a fiction that every
where any arbitrary division is completely equal to every other; the things
(and our Gestalt grasp of them) make certain divisions more likely." Here
60 Wertheimer,"Denken der Naturvolker," pp. 127, 108-09.
61 Wertheimer,"Denken der Naturvolker," pp. 108-09.
62 Wertheimer,"Denken der Naturvolker," pp. 133-34.
- 280 -
we have an expansion of the Gestalt category as originally defined by Eh-
renfels. Not only are wholes different from the sums of their parts,
but specifiable functional relations (Fuaktionsbezuge) are alleged to
exist which decide what will appear to be or function as: a i&ole and.- as
parts. Wertheimer called the logical, or psycho-logical, operation involv
ed "centering the category," or, more generally, "predetermination." It
is important to note that he stressed two aspects of this operation, both
"predetermination on the Gestalt of the whole," as in the pastry whose
shape "decides" how it is to be sliced, and "the (not necessarily conscious)
tendency to make natural, unified wholes [Gestalten] the result of the di
vision.
The implications of such an idea for the logicist formalism of phi
losophers of mathematics such as Frege were clear, and Wertheimer did not
hesitate to draw them. He cited numerous cases of "primitive" thinking in
which the commutative law does not hold. In the language of the Ewe, for
example, two things in each of three places are not the same as three things
in each of two places. The construction of equations in general is "quite
a strange thing for natural thinking." For us, too, the sum 25 + 25 can ap
pear to be something different in different situations. If we think of it
as "predetermined" by the unit 100, for example, then we get \ + \
To take a more sophisticated example: even Peano's "meta-arithmetic," known to
students today as the "base system," in which reckoning changes according to
whether the base is 1, 2, 6, 10, etc., can be seen to have "real foundations"
in something so prosaic as telling the time, an example of calculation in
63 Wertheimer, "Denken der Naturvolker," p. 132.
- 281 -
, 64
Dase twelve.
From a logicist or formalist point of view, this was little more
than psychologism pure and simple. Wertheimer, however, had no intention
of questioning the validity of mathematics, or the technical value of ab
stract, arithmetical thinking in civilized society. Instead, his priori
ties, as he presented them here, were those of the psychologist who had
found that the categories of mathematical logic were unsuitable guides to
psychological research. The philosophical implications of this finding
were nonetheless important. Husserl and Meinong had attempted to keep
psychological genesis and rational validity together with the intentional
model of consciousness. Although Wertheimer, too, hoped to prepare the
way for a thoroughgoing phenomenology of knowledge, he underminded the
original purpose of the intentional model by pointing to the different "ob
jects" that consciousness can have under different cultural conditions.
The mathematical concepts whose general validity was the cornerstone of
Frege's philosophy appear here as only one end of a continuum of "number
forms," or functional arithmetics, the end farthest removed from experienced
reality.
It would seem that Wertheimer's perspective led inevitably to some
form of cultural relativism. A not dissimilar combination of phenomenalism
and functionalism was being developed in the United States at the same time
- in part from German sources - by Franz Boas. According to Boas' perspec
tive, the half-visual "number forms" Wertheimer described would be the
products of habits of thought and behavior orignally formed in response
to particular environments, and then passed on by cultural traditions
- 282 -
which take on a formative character of their own. However, Boas* rela
tivism had limits. He believed that "mental activity follows the same
laws everywhere"; only "its manifestations depend on the character of in
dividual experience that is subjected to the action of these laws.
The fundamental form-connectedness Wertheimer professed to find in his
examples pointed, as well, to general principles that led beyond relativism.
He showed comparatively little interest in the actual cultural, geographic
al or social situations of the peoples tfiose thinking he cited, and he also
included examples from ordinary "civilized" life, such as the "baker's dozen"
or the practice of "rounding off" in mercantile reckoning. For all his
opposition to narrow apriorism and logicism, Wertheimer, too, sought prin
ciples applicable beyond single cases. "The centering of the category" is
a psycho-logical operation that occurs in all cultures. If there are laws
of thought, Wertheimer implied, then their explication ought to begin with
such operations.
Particularly revealing in this respect is Wertheimer's tendency to
mix provocative, general psychological observations with his concrete cultur
al examples. Immediately after the case of the builder seeking wood for his
house, given as an example of "the preponderance of form," Wertheimer added
that "a somewhat blunted [abgestumpftes] triangle is a triangle, not a
rectangle or a hexagon, as it would have to be called from a merely numeric-

66
al point of view. There is nothing functional about a figure drawn on a
65 Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (New York, 1911), p. 102; cf. p.
203, 239-42.
- 283 -
piece of paper, and Wertheimer did not claim that we perceive the triangle
in this way because we have learned to do so, or because it is in our
biological interes-. The blunted triangle is a triangle - that is, it is im
manent in the phenomena, or in our treatment of them, that they are perceiv
ed in this way; that is the way they "are" for us. The use of the verb
"to be" is not consistent. Elsewhere Wertheimer speaks of the "psychically
given," or he alludes, also revealingly, not to "the things" but to "the
presentation of the things in thought. Wertheimer's psychological realism
is a form of phenomenalism, but it is not the same version as that of Hume,
or of Helmholtz. Here phenomenalistic functionalism and immanentist realism
coexist in uneasy harmony.
We have already seen that many experimenting psychologists in this
period believed that one of their chief tasks was to demonstrate the in
adequacy of the psychology on which important philosophical doctrines were
based. Wertheimer was clearly very much a part of that generation. But to
take such a stance, even by implication, presupposes a standpoint of one's
own. Wertheimer's psychological realism, then, is not only a rule of scienti
fic procedure but an epistemological commitment. The implicit message was
that true philosophy must be based on this particular conception of psycho
logical reality.
Wertheimer's essay thus provided more than a wealth of observations
of "the preponderance of form." It exemplified a new mode of thinking about
both psychology and philosophy in two ways: by emphasizing "the given," along
with the conviction that this "given" is not the exclusive property of trained
- 284 -
European observers but part and parcel of lived reality; and by demanding
that both psychology and philosophy address themselves to ''natural think
ing instead of concentrating exclusively on rules of thought defined <i
priori according to the perspectives or the needs of "civilized" society.
Acceding to such a demand would provide both a concrete role for psychology
within philosophy and a concrete connection of both to lived experience.
In this sense Wertheimer's approach was an attempt to advance beyond both
sensationalist and associationist psychologism and logicist

apriorism.
However, it could also be seen as another version of the very "species re
lativism" that Husserl had just refuted. Wertheimer's implicit answer to this
was the claim that there are invariant rules of "predetermination" which are
discoverable in all cultures. He proposed to use the idea as a heuristic
for further research, and eventually to develop a comparative theory of ope
rations in different categorical areas, such as whole-part relations, iden
tity and causality, using material from both "civilized" and "primitive" so
cieties. The title of his essay made it clear that this was to be the first
in a series of contributions on the thought of primitive peoples. However,
a second instalment: never appeared; and though his inaugural lecture after
his habilitation at Frankfurt was entitled "Volkerpsychologie," he did not
publish it. We do not know why.
c. The Phi Phenomenon; A Model of Theory and Practice
Both the epistemological position and the methodological prescriptions
of Wertheimer's Gestalt theory were already present or implied in this essay.
But Koffka and Kohler referred to it only infrequently, and cited the paper
- 285 -
on apparent movement as the starting point of Gestalt theory. They were
correct to do this for several reasons. First, as Wertheimer himself said,
much was only "fragmentarily suggested" in the first paper; the systematic
working out of concepts was secondary to the rush of examples. More im
portant, perhaps, was that despite Wertheimers expressed intention of set
ting up a systematic research program on the basis of the first essay, it
was not immediately clear whether or how the viewpoint expressed there could
be applied in experimental, as opposed to field research. Finally - and this is
by no means a trivial point - though Koffka and Kohler doubtless discussed
the findings of the first essay with Wertheimer, they experienced the phe
nomena of apparent movement themselves. Wertheimer's paper on the thought
of "primitive" peoples marked the beginning of Gestalt theory as a mode of
conceiving psychological problems,with philosophical implications. The
movement paper marked the beginning of Gestalt theory as an exemplar, a
transmittable model of scientific thought and experimental practice.
At first glance the paper seemed to be merely another contribution
to the extensive literature on apparent movement, particularly the so-
called stroboscopic effect, the growth of which was encouraged by the rise
of motion pictures after the turn c the century. The phenomenon itself -
motion seen between two stationary light sources flashing at given inter
vals - was observed as early as 1850 by the physicist Plateau. Sigmund
Exner, one of Wertheimers teachers, had obtained it with two electric
sparks in 1875. He called it a "sensation" to emphasize the :ediacy of
the impression, and thus became the first of a series of in îgators to
cite impressions of motion as evidence for a sensationalist and physiologic
al line of explanation in perceptual theory, as opposed to the psychologic
- 286 -
al "construction" or "conclusion" of motion from elementary sensations.
However, Exner also showed that apparent motion produced negative after
images, and reasoned that it therefore required an explanation in terms

68
of central,not peripheral processes. Mach, too, mentioned the phenome
non in his discussion of "movement sensations," but implicitly recognized
its inconsistency with his peripheralist sensationalism by ascribing it
vaguely to "a peculiar process, which had nothing to do with the other
69
sensations of movement."
By 1910 there was little doubt about the existence of such phenome
na, but the dispute about their status and explanation continued. The phy
siologist von Kries, for example, did not question the accuracy of Exner's
observations, but objected to calling the phenomenon a sensation: "The
impression that a body is or has been in motion is certainly to be called
a judgment so far as its psychic contents are c o n c e r n e d . V o n Kries
did not mean intellectual acts here, but something intermediate between
these and sensations. This was evidently an attempt to retain Helmholtz's
terminology and his framework of explanation without denying the evidence
presented. Most prominent among psychologist's theories on the subject
68 Sigmund Exner, "fiber das Sehen von Bewegungen und die Theorie des zu-
sammengesetzten Auges," Sitzungsber. der Wiener Akad. der Wiss., 72
(1875), pp. 156-90; Entwurf zu einer physiologischen Erklarung der
psychischen Erscheinungen (Leipzig, 1894); Cornelius, Psychologie
(cited in part two, n. 251 ), p. 132. Cf. William Woodward, "From
Association to Gestalt," (cited in part two, n. 11 ), pp. 580-81.
69 Mach, Analysis, p. 144; Grundlinien der Lehre von den Bewegungsempfin-

dungen (Leipzig, 1875), p. 63.
70 Von Kries, suppl. to Helmholtz, Optics, vol. 3, pp. 605-06.
- 287 -
were those of Karl Marbe and Paul Ferdinand Linke. Marbe attributed seen
motion to the combined effects of the after-images of the stationary sti
muli. Linke characterized the impression as a "complex quality" in the
sense of Hans Cornelius and Felix Krueger, both of whose lectures he
heard, and said that its appearance depended upon the subjective impres
sion of a moving "object" (Gegenstand) , to which sensations could be re
lated. He speculated that central processes like the "assimilation" des
cribed by Wundt were involved.Thus, when Wertheimer got off the train
in Frankfurt, he brought with him an idea about a decidedly current issue
which raised anew the categorical question of center and periphery, sen
sation and perception, and their relationship to one another.
Wertheimer mentioned the various available theories at the beginning
of his paper. However, consistent with the methodological and epistemo-
logical position presented in his paper on thought, he did not discuss
them in detail, but proceeded immediately to the phenomenological or on
tological issue. "One sees movement," he asserted, not an object that is
first in one place and then in another, but movement per se; "what is psy
chologically given ... What is the psychic reality, what is the essence
72
of this impression?" His experimental design, especially his use of the
71 Karl Marbe, Theorie der kinematischen Proiektionen (Leipzig, 1910);

Paul Ferdinand Linke, "Die stroboskopischen Tauschungen und das Pro
blem des Sehens von Bewegung", Psychologische Studien, 3 (1907), pp.
393-545, e.g., pp. 544-45.
72 Wertheimer, "Experimentelle Studien iiber das Sehen von Bewegung,"

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 61 (1912), pp. 161-265; repr. in Drei Ab-
handlungen zur Gestalttheorie, pp. 1-105; abr. trans. in Thome Ship
ley, ed., Classics in Psychology (New York, 1961), pp. 1032-89. Except
where noted, both the translation, designated "Motion", and the German
reprint, designated "Bewegung", will be cited. The citation here,
- 288 -
Schumann tachistoscope, made it possible to answer that question in a new
way. Instead of stroboscopic displacements of the usual kind - pairs
of flashing points, lines or other objects in succession - he could work
with repetitions of single displacements, with the time interval control
led by regulating the speed of the revolving wheel. To put it in terms
appropriate to the mixed philosophical and psychological character of the
problem, he could unify the problems of space and time by making one a
function of the other, and thus directly test the assumption already at
tacked by Bergson as an artifact of natural-scientific thinking, that
motion is not immediate but inferred from a series of displacements of
an object in both space and time.
The findings are well known. In the standard experiment, a black
card with two slits cut in it is placed on a white background and observ
ed through a lens, while the tachistoscope wheel is rotated so that the
time required for the light to pass from one slit to the next can be varied.
Above a specific threshold value, approximately thirty milliseconds, one
sees the two lines in succession. With much faster rotation, up to 200
milliseconds, the two lines are seen flashing simultaneously. At the so-
called "optimal" stage, approximately sixty milliseconds, "one sees a
definite motion: a line moves clearly and distinctly from an Tipper posi
tion into a lower one," when the slits are horizontally aligned, or from
one side to the other, when they are vertically aligned (see Figure 7,p. 290).
Most important both epistemologically and psychologically was that in
most cases apparent motion could not be distinguished from real motion.
therefore, is: "Motion," pp. 1032, 1036; "Bewegung," pp, 2, 6.

Emphasis mine.
- 289 -
In fact, when one was found to be "better," that is, clearer and more im-
73
pressive, it was most often the illusion.
More important still was what happened when the time interval was
increased slightly beyond sixty milliseconds. After repeated exposures at
this interval, subjects saw motion without an object. According to the
conventional view, Wertheimer said, we see an object take on several posi
tions successively and something is "added" subjectively. If this were
correct, then (1 ) an object would have to be seen moving and (2 ) at least
two "positions", the starting and the end points, would be required to
produce motion, while motion should cease when one is taken away. Neither
of these conditions always held. Indeed, the phenomenon of objectless motion
was most convincing when the stimuli - e.g., the two stripes - were placed
so far apart that they could no longer be seen through the viewing device.
There was "nothing of intermediate positions; the stripe ... has not pass
ed through the field, the ground remained quite black - but the motion goes
across," read one protocol. In another case, a third object was placed be
tween the two stripes, so that if something were seen to be in motion
between them the observer would notice the interference (Figure 8 ). In
stead a "tunnel phenomenon" occurred; motion was seen between the two
stripes and going behind the third object. In still other cases, a single
object was seen to move between positions a^ and j>, although there was in
fact no second stripe there at all. After repeated exposures of the two
stripes as shown in Figure 9, one observer saw "a small but distinct move
ment towards the vertical line from the right, a rotation of about 40.
73 Wertheimer, "Motion," pp. 1035, 1038-39; "Bewegung," pp. 5, 13-14.
- 290 -
r *----- 1
0 1 - I 1
Figure 7: Set-ups for apparent motion experiments: phi phenomenon
Figure 8: "interference phenomenon
Figure 9: dual part motion
Source: Wertheimer, "Motion," pp. 1060-61; "Bewegung," pp. 102-05.
- 291 -
The horizontal? They must have taken it away." In fact it was still there;
74
when Wertheimer quickly removed it, there was no change in the phenomenon.
Wertheimer gave this objectless motion the neutral name phi to dis
tinguish it from other motion phenomena. It was, he said, "simply a pro
cess, a transition," or "an across in itself." This was no quirk of ob
servation or artefact of method, but "a unique, lawful and quantitatively
measurable effect," clearly given and "always observable." The phenome
non appears in exactly the same way as do color or form. But, contrary
to other psychical data "they are dynamic, not static in nature; they have
their psychological flesh and blood in the specific character 'across, 1
and this cannot be composed from the usual optical content(s)." He realiz
ed that he would encounter resistance to this idea, and therefore stress
ed that "we must contend not only with a theoretical argument" - such as
Bergson had advanced years before - "but with a crucial experiment in the
literal sense [Demonstrationsexperiment im pragnanten Sinn] in which the
pure phi process appears." With this demonstration he broke not only with
conventional views of the relationship of sensation and judgment, but also,
and this time explicitly, with the intentional model of consciousness.
The notion, derived from logic, that a process must necessarily be a pro
cess of something "is not founded on pure psychological data," Wertheimer
asserted; "and why should not pure dynamic phenomena exist?"^ To determine
"the essence" of the phenomenon more exactly and to test the current theo
ries about it, Wertheimer also examined the transitions between the three
74 Wertheimer, "Motion," pp. 1051 ff.; "Bewegung," pp. 56 ff., 61 ff.
75 Wertheimer, "Motion," pp. 1063-65, 1082; "Bewegung," pp. 65-66, 85.
- 292 -
stages, gradually varying the exposure intervals and the arrangements, size
and color of the stimulus objects, and examining the role of attitude and
attention. He dealt easily with Schumanns theory that motion perception
was due to "illusions of judgment." If this is an illusion, he argued,
then it is an illusion about something "psychically given," not physically
real, essentially a contradiction in terms. In any case, the phenomenon
does not disappear, but improves with increased attention or prolonged ob
servation. Against the attribution of seen motion to eye movements, he
argued that even the movement associated with ordinary motion pictures is
too complex for such an explanation; there were too many motions in too
many directions at once. He dealt with Marbe's theory of afterimages just
as easily; these often remained in the locations corresponding to those
of the stimulus objects, yet movement between them was nonetheless observ-
j 76
ed.
With Linke's "identification" theory Wertheimer was more cautious,
since it was clear that an object was in fact seen most of the time in
the optimal stage. He recognized that the impression of identity, when
it occurred, could be very strong, but he questioned whether this was in
fact "constitutive" for the phenomenon. The phi phenomenon was the best
evidence against this notion. In addition, study of the transitions be
tween the three stages yielded phenomena of "dual part motion" - motion
seen proceeding a short distance from one stimulus object, then "reemerg-
ing" at the other - and "fusion" phenomena, described schematically
as 0 b^ or 0 b_ (instead of the paradigmatic
76 Wertheimer, "Motion," pp. 1076-77, 1059 f., 1049; "Bewegung," pp. 79-
80, 62-63, 25.
- 293 -
& 0 b); none of these variants -was easily explained with the "identi
fication" theory. When there was uncertainty, Wertheimer concluded, it
was about identity, not motion.^
As to whether central or peripheral processes were responsible for
this range of phenomena, there was little doubt about Wertheimers po
sition. He confirmed Exner*s observation that apparent motion produced
negative after-images in the same way as real motion. In addition, he point
ed to Exner*s demonstration that motion also was seen haploscopically, i.e.,
when each stimulus object was presented so that it was visible to only
one eye. This alone, even without the phi phenomenon, should be sufficient
to show that a process "behind the retina" was involved, he argued. But
what? Wertheimer had described two different types of phenomena under the
heading of phi: the more frequent, "pure" phi, located between the two sti
mulus objects; and the "fusion" phenomena just cited. Accordingly, he
posited two kinds of "transverse functions" in the cortex. According to
recent neurological theory, he noted, the excitation of a central neural
point causes a disturbance in the point itself and in the area around it,
as well, thus predisposing the.entire affected area to excitation. Increas
ed attention heightens this disposition. If two neighboring points were
stimulated within a given time interval, "a kind of physiological short cir
cuit, a specific passage of excitation from & to b" might occur. The di
rection of the flow would depend on the point stimulated first, and on the
nearness of the points to one another. The succession stage would thus occur
when process _a passes its temporal peak, and the simultaneous stage reflects
77 Wertheimer, "Bewegung," pp. 30, 54, 78 ff.; cf. "Motion," pp. 1076 ff.
- 294 -
the near-similarity of the processes.
If process is at its peak when process b_ enters, "then the cross
ing of excitation occurs" and the phi phenomenon is seen. Cases of mul
tiple phi could he described as a system of such "crossings," which could
well overlap. If the time interval lies between the values for optimal
movement and succession, "then the phenomenon acts most strongly on the
borders of the two objects, and is subliminal in the center"; the result
is dual part motion. The negative after-images could be explained as
after-effects of prolonged stimulation, a "flooding back" of the cur
rent flow. Finally, with a successive series of exposures under optim
al conditions, "a unitary continuous whole-process" would be produced, in
which the position-character of the objects would be diminished. This
would account for cases in which phi is seen with only one stimulus
object, and for the fusion phenomena. It may have seemed to some readers
that such speculations called for an overly literal equation of "near
ness" in the perceptual world with "nearness" in the brain. In order to
counteract such an impression, Wertheimer made a remark that proved to be
significant for the subsequent development of Gestalt theory:
It is immaterial whether this 'neighborhood* is thought of simply

geometrically ... or whether it is only a question of functional
linkage ... the neighboring points of the retina must be thought
of as being in a special, especially strong and especially 'near'
reciprocal functional connection with corresponding afferent
central points.
Wertheimer's paper became one of the most successful in the history
78 Wertheimer, "Motion," pp. 1085-87, esp. p. 1085, n. 57; "Bewegung,"

pp. 85 ff., esp. p. 8 8 , n. 1.
- 295 -
of psychology. As we have seen, he did not discover the phenomenon of ap
parent motion; nor was he the first to advocate its central origins.
Far more important was his demonstration of disembodied motion, or phi;
but even this did not turn out to be a crucial experiment or demonstration.
At least it did not have the same effect as Heinrich Hertz's confirmation
of Maxwell's equations. Dispute about the phenomenon's existence and
its probable causes continued for some time. In the long run, however,
Wertheimer's work restructured research in this field of perception, "free
ing" motion, as it were, from its dependence upon a moving object and making
it a phenomenon worth study in its own right. According to one account,
most of the more than 100 papers on apparent motion published by 1940 refer
79
to Wertheimer's paper; far fewer cite Linke or 'Marbe. In this sense,
then, to use the title of one commentary, the paper was indeed a "turning
80
point" in psychological research.
However, in the words of the same commentary, it was also a "rally
ing point" for the Gestalt theorists themselves. In an excursus Wertheimer
made an important addition to his physiological speculations, which is often
ignored in the literature because it was not directly related to movement.
79 Boring, Sensation and Perception, p. 602. For a bibliography and a

review of research in the field after 1935, see L. Aarons, "Visual
Apparent Movement Research: Review 1935-1955 and Bibliography 1955-
1963," Perception and Motor Skills, Monograph Supplement, 18 (1964),
pp. 2 39-74.For a discussion of Hertz's confirmation of Maxwell's
equations as a crucial experiment, see Berkson, Forces and Fields
(cited in part two, n. 165), p. 248.
80 W.M. O'Neill and A.A. Landauer, "The Phi-Phenomenon: Turning Point or

Rallying Point?" Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 2 (1966), pp. 335-40.
- 296 -
Perhaps, he suggested, there were transverse and total processes which
"result as specific wholes from the excitation of individual cells over a
large area." Thus, for example, when two connected lines appear as an
angle in the "simultaneous" stage,
they appear as a duo in uno, as a compelling total Gestalt

[Gesamtgestalt]. Not two lines coming from a single point,
but an angle is there ... a sort of physiological connected
ness would thus be given, and also a unified whole process
resulting from the individual physiological excitations as
a whole - a simultaneous phi-function.
The existence of such functions could pose "specific experimental questions,
which could lead to important results. In the study of reproduction and
recognition, for example, "the appearance of the previously existing phy
siological total form [Gesamtform] of the unified process would be essent-

81
ial, not the reproduction of specific individual excitations."
There is evidence that this idea was actually the most important
part of the paper, as far as the emergence of Gestalt theory was concerned.
Here is how Kurt Koffka recalled it twenty years later:
In a way, the first Gestalt solution of the form problem came

in a roundabout way, via Wertheimer's movement experiments.
Why were they so important, why did they start us on a new course?
To have proved that movement as experience is different from
the experience', of successive intervening phases meant a good
deal at that time. But it might not have meant more than the in
troduction of a new kind of sensation .... Wertheimer did very
much more: he joined the movement experience, the movement phi,
to the psychology of pure simultaneity and of pure succession,
the first corresponding to form or shape, the second to rhythm,
melody, etc. This was the decisive step: just as movement as
a psychological event has its specific properties as a shift of
process over an area or through space, thus has the specific pro
perties qua distribution of process; and the same point of view
81 Wertheimer, "Bewegung," p. 92 and n. 3.
- 297 -
is applicable to rhythm and melody, where the rhythmic group as

a whole, the melodic phrase, have these particular psychophysic
al characteristics and are not resolved into a number of individual
part-contents.
I remember the actual moment perfectly well, when I learned of
this new view. It was in Wertheimer's room in Frankfurt, when
he told me, who had been his perfectly submitting [sic] subject
for several months, of the result of his work and of his con
clusion. I can still feel the thrill of the experience when it
dawned on me what all this really meant. Of course, at that time
I had the merest inkling of it, none of us saw as yet very far,
but I saw that much, that now at last form had become a subject
that could be handled; it made its final entry into the system
of psychology...82
This was an excellent description of the social genesis of scientific
discovery. At a number of levels, Wertheimer's paper, and the experiences
that led to it, served as an alternative "exemplar" for these younger scien
tists, offered by an independent brother figure whose only power over
them was that of his ideas and personality. Methodologically, his entire
procedure assumed Hering's heuristic phenomenalism, or psychological
realism, the accessibility and scientific primacy of the "phenomenon in
the sense of the psychically specific, observable given," discovered by
"observation without postulating." Although this access often required
precision instruments and carefully controlled conditions, the chief in
strument was the observer; hence Wertheimer's confidence in the validi
ty of his results despite the use of only three subjects. "It proved to
be unnecessary to obtain a large number of subjects," he said, "since the
characteristic phenomena appeared in every case unequivocally, spontaneous-
82 Koffka, "Beginnings of Gestalt Theory," pp. 1-2. Emphasis in the origin

al! Koffka later said that this meeting occurred early in 1911. Wert
heimer had told Kohler of the results some time before. Cf. Koffka,
Principles, p. 53; Koffka to E.G. Boring, 24 May 1927, Boring papers.
- 298 -
83
ly and compellingly."
There was nothing new in this alone; it had become a common metho
dological ground for many experimenting psychologists in Germany by
this time. The difference was that Wertheimer took the epistemological
implications of this methodological prescription seriously, accepting even
phenomena that ought not to exist according to accepted theoretical per
spectives. Despite the proclaimed absence of postulates, this was a theory
laden procedure from the beginning. Instead of naming or renaming the phe
nomena according to the dualistic schema provided by both empiricist and
rationalist epistemology, Wertheimer proposed to restructure the schema.
This meant revising not only the terms of psychological description, but
those of physiological explanation, as well. Wertheimer was quite clear
about the uses and the limits of his physiological speculations:
A physiological theory has two functions in connection with experi

mental investigation: on the one hand it must encompass the di
verse individual results and their regularity in a unified manner
and make them deducible; on the other hand, and this seems essent
ial - this unified summation must serve the further advance of
investigation by leading to the posing of concrete experimental
questions, which first test the theory itself and then are appro
priate for further penetration into the regularities of the pheno
mena. 84
Here psychological concepts are not brought in to supplement physio
logical assumptions, as Helmholtz had done. Nor is physiological language
brought in as an auxiliary to the vocabulary of experimental phenomenology
and rationalist and empiricist philosophy, as Stumpf had done. Wertheimer
83 Wertheimer, "Motion," p. 1042; "Bewegung," p. 17.
84 Wertheimer, "Motion," p. 1084; "Bewegung," p. 87. Emphasis in the

original.
- 299 -
offered a dynamic interaction of both. The detailed phenomenology, or
psychological ontology, comes first; the physiological model is shaped
to fit it; and the model is used in turn to predict further results.
Koffka later said he was "enthralled" to hear that psychological and
physiological events had to be pulled together under the lead of psy-

85
chological facts rather than of physiological hypotheses." This goal
had been enunciated as a general principle of research by Mach, G.E.
Muller and others before, as we have seen. However, it was one thing to
read of such hopes in books, or to hear them mentioned in Stumpfs lecture.
It was quite another thing to hear such an idea expressed as an implication
of concrete research results which one has had a part in producing, and
yet another to hear about a detailed, specific, apparently predictive phy
siology of "continuous whole processes" rather than combinations of dis
crete excitations. This was, at least potentially, a unified, multi
layered model of thought and procedure that was bound to the stimulating
to young psychologists looking for discoveries to make.
d. The Birth of Gestalt Theory
For this work Wertheimer earned the right to lecture in philosophy
in Frankfurt in the spring of 1912. Kohler had habilitated the semester
before on the basis of the second installment of his acoustical research.
They were among the first to habilitate in Frankfurt, and thus part of the
growing tendency of the school to take on the lineaments of a full-fledged
85 Koffka, "Beginnings of Gestalt Theory," p. 4.
- 300 -
university. In the next two years Wertheimer offered courses in both
psychology and philosophy, including "Ethnological Psychology" (Volkerpsy-
chologie), "Theory of Knowledge," "Psychology of Memory" and "The Origins
of Philosophy." Kohler did the same. In addition to courses in experi
mental psychology for beginning and advanced students and in acoustics
(Tonpsychologie) he offered "History of Nineteenth Century Philosophy,"
"Contemporary Philosophy," "The Philosophy of Bergson" and "The Physical

86
Basis of Consciousness." Perhaps they were following their intellectual
interest in doing this; perhaps they were doing their best both to at
tract a variety of students and to establish their credentials as teachers
of philosophy, an essential prerequisite to advancement in the German uni
versities. Probably both of these motives were involved to some degree. In
any case, the results were soon reflected in their work.
The fruits of Wertheimers lectures on epistemology in the summer
semester of 1913 were recorded by another participant in the work of the
Frankfurt institute, Gabriele Grafin von Wartensleben, a teacher. She re
ceived her doctorate under Schumann in 1913 for tachistoscopic experiments
on the reading of letters, in which Wertheimer and Kohler served as sub-

87
jects. The next year she published a summary of what she had heard in
Wertheimers lecture at the beginning of a short book entitled An Ideal
Portrait of the Christian Personality: A Description sub specie psycholo-
86 The course titles are taken from Akademie fur Sozial und Handels-
wissenschaften zu Frankfurt am Main. Die Vorlesungen (Frankfurt a.M.,
1903 ff.) for the years 1912 to 1914.
87 Gabriele Grafin von Wartensleben, "fiber den EinfluB der Zwischenzeit

auf die Reproduktion gelesener Buchstaben," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie,
64 (1913), pp. 321-85. The participation of Kohler and Wertheimer is
acknowledged on p. 327.
- 301 -
gica. In the first sentence she asserted that "The word personality,
one of the weightiest, most problematic words in the language, mpang
from a psychological point of view neither more nor less than a 'Gestalt'
of a particular kind, in the proper and absolute sense of the word."

88
The footnote attached to the word "Gestalt" goes on for several pages
of small print; it was the first explicit account of Gestalt theory as
such. Given their obscure location, it is not -likely that many psycho
logists or philosophers noticed these words. It is quite clear from the
text, however, that nearly all of the principles of Wertheimer's Gestalt
theory had been worked out, even at this early date, and their implications
for philosophy, especially logic and epistemology, duly noted. Because
this text has never appeared complete in English, and has only been reprint
ed once in German, it seems appropriate to include it here.
After a brief summary of Ehrenfels' concept of Gestalt qualities,
the exposition proceeds as follows:
M. Wertheimer's Gestalt theory (which has not yet appeared in

print, but about which I learned in a lecture on apistemological
problems which he gave at the Frankfurt Academy in the summer se
mester of 1913, and in many private conversations) contains the
following basic thoughts:
1. Aside from chaotic, therefore not, or not properly appre
hensible impressions, the contents of our consciousness are mostly
not summative, but constitute a particular characteristic 'together
ness', that is, a segregated structure, often 'comprehended' from
an inner center, which can be different according to the nature
of the ideational content [Vorstellungsinhalt]; e.g., an optical
or acoustical, or also a dynamic or intensity center. To this
the other parts of the structure are related in a hierarchical
system. Such structures are to be called 'Gestalten' in a pre-
88 Von Wartensleben, Die christliche Personlichkeit im Idealbild. Eine

Beschreibung sub specie psychologies (Kempten & Munich, 1914), p. 1.
Cf. Michael Wertheimer, Max Wertheimer," p. 13.
- 302 -
cise sense.
2. Almost all impressions are grasped either as chaotic masses
- a relatively seldom, extreme case - or as chaotic masses on the
way to sharper formation, or as Gestalten. What is finally grasped
are 'impressions of structure' [Gebildefassungen]. To these belong
the objects in a broad sense of the word, as well as 'relation
al contexts [Beziehungszusammenhange]. They are something speci
fically different from and more than the summative totality of
the individual components. Often the 'whole' is grasped even be
fore the individual parts enter consciousness.
3. The epistemological process - knowledge in a precise
[Pragnanten] sense of the word - is very often a process of 'center
ing', of 'structuring', or of grasping that particular aspect which
provides the key to an orderly whole, a unification of the parti
cular individual parts that happen to be present; what results is
that a structured unit emerges as a whole due to, and through, this
centering. The results of just this knowledge process is a spring
ing forth [Herausspringen] of the Gestalt from the 'not yet formed'
[noch nicht gestaltet]! iCertain 'so-colorings' of the parts result
from the specific total conception; parts and specific states now
become 'understandable' on this basis.
The entity that results from the knowledge process depends in

many respects not only on the object, but also on the observer.
Thus there are several ways of grasping many phenomena, but ge
nerally only one can be correct; that which makes all states under
standable and derivable from the central 'idea* and thus gives mean
ing [Sinn] to the entire given.
The same statements made about different entities can have com
pletely different directions, according to the way in which they
'sit' in the entity [drinsitzen], e.g., whether they are nearer or
further from the center. Thus, e.g., in the case of 'the wall is red,'
'red' 'sits' differently than in the case of 'blood is red' (though
the logical situation becomes more complicated here). Thus some
thing completely different is meant by a complex connection such as
'drinker philosopher' [Trinkerphilosoph]. according to whether the
drinker is thought to be in the philosopher or the philosopher in
the drinker.89
89 Von Wartensleben, Christliche Personlichkeit. pp. 1-3; repr. in Mar

tin Scheerer, Die Lehre von der Gestalt (Berlin, 1931), pp. 84-85.
I have also made use of the selective translation by Michael Wert
heimer, in "Max Wertheimer," p. 14, with minor alterations. Emphasis
in the original.
- 303 -
It must have seemed quite strange to Friedrich Schumann to witness
the radical changes going on in his institute. He did his best to respond
to them. At the 1912 congress of the "Society for Experimental Psychology,
he announced the publication of Wertheimer's paper at the end of his own
paper on visual perception. In response to a discussant, he emphasized
that the "sensory something" (sinnliche Etwas) that Wertheimer had found
was "not merely postulated," but "directly observed under various condi
tions." He did not yet admit theoretical defeat, however, but claimed that
attempts to explain this and other phenomena in terms of illusions of judg-

90
ment "cannot be regarded as hopeless." As time went on, however, he was
forced to concede more and more ground to his young coworkers. Among the
investigations he reported in 1912 was one by Wilhelm Fuchs on the long
standing issue of whether two colors could be seen simultaneously, one
behind the other, an important problem in depth perception. At the time
Fuchs had obtained no positive result. As Schumann later reported, however,
the situation changed in 1913, when Wertheimer and another "strongly visual"
observer - probably either Kohler or Adhemar Gelb - were called in. Both
got positive results, but complained that observation was strenuous be
cause the colored figures were not allowed to appear as wholes. When this
was done, the phenomenon appeared immediately, "constantly closed and with-
91
out any discontinuity."
90 Schumann, "fiber einige Problems der Lehre von den Gesichtswahmehmun-

gen," in Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur experimentel-
le Psychologie... 1912 (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 181, 183.
91 Schumann, "Untersuchungen uber die psychologischen Grundprobleme der

Tiefenwahmehmung. II. Die Dimensionen des Sehraumes," Zeitschrift fur
Psychologie, 8 6 (1921), pp. 253-77, esp. pp. 266-67, 270. Cf. Wilhelm
- 304 -
Schumann himself failed to make such an observation. He attributed
this, astoundingly, to his own hypercritical attitude while observing. He
admitted that "many other people have a much more pronounced sensory life
than I do. Various centrally conditioned phenomena appear to me in less
pronounced form than to many others." In his reading experiments, for
example, he had "almost never seen a word clearly in all its parts," be
cause his "attention was always so fixed on the fixation point ... this
concentration upon a small region could be a result of a strongly critical
attitude and the effort to obtain greatest exactitude." In the case of
Fuchs' work, as well, he was forced to accept the statements of "such
trained subjects as Dr. Wertheimer, Dr. Gelb and Dr. Kohler," and to
conclude that "a critical attitude toward various subjective phenomena is

92
not conducive to the perception of a larger complex as a unified whole."
Certainly Schumann had not declared himself to be an adherent of Gestalt
theory with these remarks. However, he had recognized, at least implicit
ly, both the change in observational conventions carried out by his younger
colleagues and the theoretical consequences such a change was likely to
have.
We have seen that Adhemar Gelb, Koffka's successor as Schumann's
assistant, had taken Stumpf*s position on the problem of Gestalt qualities
in his dissertation of 1911. After several years in Frankfurt, however,
he had clearly changed his outlook. At the 1914 congress of the Society for
Fuchs, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen liber das simultane Hintereinander

auf derselben Sehrichtung," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 91 (1923),
pp. 145-235.
92 Schumann, "Untersuchungen," loc. cit.
- 305 -
Experimental Psychology, he reported experiments on the perception of
space and time with unusual results. Three series of threelamps each
were switched on at equal time intervals, but with varying amounts of
separation between them, for example as shown:
1 2 3
Subjects were asked to fixate the middle point and to judgewhether the time
interval between the first and second points from the left was larger or
smaller than that between the second and third. Surprisingly, in many cases
the subjects spontaneously reported changes in the configuration of the
points such that their arrangement was symmetrical to the judged time dif
ferences. If the time interval were judged to be smaller, for example,
the point on the right appeared to be closer to the middle point than it
did when the interval was judged to be larger. Gelb found similar pheno
mena, often even more extreme, in the other senses. This excluded eye move
ments as a possible explanation, and other factors seemed to rule out
errors of judgment. Gelb suggested that the explanation "lies essential
ly in the direction of the 'Gestalt laws'" discovered by Wertheimer, but
not yet published, about which he learned only after the completion of
93
his experiments.
At the same congress Wertheimer announced the discovery of the most
important of these laws, in a discussion of a paper by Vittorio Benussi.
93 Adhemar Gelb, "Versuche auf dem Gebiet der Zeit und Raumanschauung,"
in Friedrich Schumann, ed,, Bericht uber den 6 . Kongress fur experimen
talle Psychologie ... 1914 (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 36-42.
- 306 -
Benussi had observed motion phenomena in tactile perception qualitatively
similar to those studied by Wertheimer and himself in vision two years
before. Motion seemed to occur not on but above the skin, in an ellip
tical curve between the two stimulus points. After prolonged stimulation,
the curve seemed to divide into two symmetrical curves and finally to be-
94
come a circle. In the discussion several speakers reported similar phe
nomena. Hans Rupp, for example, reported observations in vision by the
French psychologist Bourdon. When three, four, five or six points were
regularly distributed around a center, observers had the impression of a
figure with the corresponding number of corners; but when eight points are
so presented, not an octagon but a circle appeared. Wertheimer then point
ed to Gelb's results and said that he had discovered "among several Gestalt
laws of a general kind a law of the tendency toward simple formation [Ge-
staltung] (law of the Pragnanz of the Gestalt), according to which visible
connection of the position, size, brightness and other qualities of com-

95
ponents appears as a result of altered subjective Gestalt apprehensions."
It was a strange birth ceremony. From these few words it could
not possibly have been clear what Wertheimer meant. Unfortunately, the
promised publication did not appear until 1923. The absence of a syste
matic publication from Wertheimer forced Koffka and Kohler to rely on
quotations from his lectures and on their own efforts as they attempted
to develop and explain the systematic implications of their new approach.
94 Vittorio Benussi, "Kinematische Scheinbewegungen und Auffassungsfor-

mung," in Schumann, ed., Bericht ... 1914, pp. 30-55.
95 Benussi, ibid., discussion, pp. 148-49.
- 307 -
3. Conceptual Next Steps by Koffka and Kohler, 1912-1920
a. Koffka; First Proposals for Theory Construction
These attempts began with a brief essay submitted by Koffka to the
Zeitschrift fur Psychologie in February of 1912, one month after the
submission of Wertheimer's motion paper, and printed immediately follow
ing it in the same issue of the journal. Entitled "A New Attempt at an
Objective System of Psychology," it was a commentary on the final section
of the Frankfurt physician Ludwig Edinger's lectures on the neuroanatomy
of animals and humans, in which Edinger attempted to draw the implications

96
of his ideas for psychology. Edinger's schema linked anatomical to be
havioral forms in a sequence corresponding to their evolutionary history.
The central distinction was that between the so-called "old brain" (Palaeoence-
phalon) and the "new brain" (Neoencephalon). The former, including every
thing from the head end of the spinal cord to the olfactory centers, was .
described as the seat of the reflexes and most instinctive movements. To
the subsequently evolved "new brain" he ascribed the functions of "gnosis"
- connection of signals from the sensory receptors - "praxis" - non-instinct-
ive movements - and simple and complex associations. He postulated that in
telligence, "action with insight," increases with the size and complexity
of the associative centers in the "new brain." The behavior of "old brain"
animals is exclusively determined by preformed anatomical schemata; the
same, "biologically adequate" stimuli always produce the same reactions,
96 Koffka, "Ein neuer Versuch eines objektiven Systems der Psychologie,"

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 61 (1912), pp. 266-78.
- 308 -
while other stimuli which the animals certainly receive produce no reaction.
Lizards, for example, listen closely to the sound of an insect crawling
in the grass, but do not react to the sound of a stone struck above their
heads. The anatomy of "new brain" animals permits considerably greater

97
reactive flexibility.
However, as Koffka pointed out, Edinger reached the limits of
his method when the achievements involved are no longer those of behavior,
instinctive or otherwise, but of reflection, either thought or affect.
Edinger used the word "consciousness" to describe these, but Koffka substi
tuted the broader term "experience" (Erlebnis). Edinger's schema, he
suggested, made it possible for "the psychologist of consciousness" to
relegate instincts and reflexes to physiology; for they are not experienc
ed, but proceed "like processes in a dynamo machine. ... The investigation
of the old brain and its achievements is thus excluded from psychology;
it is merely an affair of physiology. This boundary regulation is a gain

98
for psychology." Still, Koffka had no intention of separating the two
disciplines completely; for he found the distinction between "gnosis" and
the other "new brain" functions potentially useful. The physiological ad
justments necessary for color constancy, for example, must take place in
the "new brain"; yet they are not experienced. Progress might thus be made
by studying the relation of such "gnostic" functions to conscious processes
97 Ludwig Edinger, Vorlesungen uber den Bau der nervosen Zentralorgane

der Menschen und der Tiere, 8th ed. (Leipzig, 1911), vol. 1, here
pp. 506-07.
98 Koffka, "Versuch," p. 271. Emphasis mine.
- 309
like attention. "If we attribute to gnosis what it deserves," Koffka suggest
ed, "we will arrive more quickly atcorrect results than by trying to invoke
99
unconscious conclusions and errors of judgment."
Evidently Koffka was searching for a neuroanatomical location for
Wertheimers "transverse functions" which could also account for the "central
transformations" alluded to by David Katz in his work in color perception.
Although he did not mention Wertheimer's physiological speculations, he
had apparently realized their broad implications and their connection with
other developments in psychology. However, this realization was vague at
best. Koffka's concluding words were that psychologists should never for
get that behind the apparent inconstancy of consciousness "a machine operates
100
uninterruptedly," with effects that emerge only later. Clearly, he still
equated physiological with mechanical processes, despite Wertheimer's
implication that this might not be the case at all. He said nothing
about this essay in his later work; but he retained for many years the idea
of "experience," rather than behavior, as the defining subject matter of
psychology.
It was with this point that Koffka began his programmatic introduc
tion to his monograph on imagery, also published in 1912. Conscious ex
periences, he said there, are the content of all psychological statements,
including statements about higher animals. Either we accept the idea that
some of their actions are accompanied by consciousness, or we reject any
analogy to human beings, in which case the name "science of animal behavior"
would be more appropriate than "animal psychology." Specifically, he de-
99 Koffka, "Versuch," p. 278.
100 Koffka, "Versuch," p. 278.
- 310 -
fined the tasks of psychology as the descriptive and psychophysical investi
gation of individual contents of consciousness and the determination of the
lavs which underlie their succession."*^* He admitted that there was
nothing extraordinarily unusual about such a definition, but claimed that
it was more often stated than followed. In particular, the distinction
was not always made between what he called "descriptive" and "functional"
concepts. Both are derived from experience, he said, but in different ways.
Descriptive concepts "derive from simple perception and the description of
experiences." They are classificatory tools, and nothing more. The term
"achromatic colors," for example, is simply a name for a collection of
experiences, those of black and white. The use of new methods could expand
the list of such concepts; Koffka cited Kohler1s "interval colors" as an
example of this. "Functional" concepts, such as threshold, retroactive in
hibition, or determining tendency, are not directly derived from experience
in this sense. A threshold, for example, has never been experienced in
the laboratory; only specific relations among sensations are experienced,

102
which we then attempt to cover by using the threshold concept.
To show that he was not belaboring the obvious, Koffka provided
examples of the contamination of the two kinds of concepts from the writings
of the major critics of the Wurzburg school, Wundt and Titchener. Perhaps
the best case was Titchener*s use of the term "attention" both to designate
101 Koffka, Zur Analyse der Vorstellungen, pp. 1, v.
102 Koffka, Vorstellungen, pp. 4 ff. A translation of pp. 2-16 of this

book, entitled "Descriptive and Functional Concepts," is in Mandler
and Mandler, Thinking (cited in part two, n. 213), pp. 236-47, here
pp. 238 ff.
- 311 -
the quality of "sensory clearness" and to explain certain relations among
sensations, for example the fact that we hear a faint sound in certain
situations and not in others. The second usage, Koffka thought, is
consistent with that of Kiilpe and Ebbinghaus; for them attention is a
functional concept, one of the factors on which the absolute and differ-
rence thresholds depend. But to use the same word in a descriptive sense
identifies effect and cause. If we insert the word "dearness" into the
statement about hearing faint sounds, above, we get the following: "If
a weak sound is clear, you can hear it under certain circumstances; how
ever, you cannot hear it when it is not clear." Certainly Titchener would
not want to have statements like this attributed to him, Koffka acknowledg
ed; but most of his terms are in fact mixta composita of descriptive and
functional concepts. In Titchener*s case the confusion was inevitable.
His psychology knows only descriptive concepts; "he does not even see
the possibility of forming concepts with characteristics that are not
to be found in experience, about which simple introspection cannot make any

. . i,103
decision.
Koffka put his position quite simply by quoting from Ebbinghaus*
reply to Dilthey: "'an experienced connection is not the same as the con-
104
nection of the experienced.*" The citation and its source indicate the
fundamentally positivist direction Koffka had apparently taken here. He
emphasized it by drawing an explicit parallel between "functional" concepts
103 Koffka, Vorstellungen, pp. 9 ff.; "Descriptive and Functional Con

cepts," pp. 244 ff.
104 Koffka, Vorstellungen, pp. 6-7, n. 1.
- 312 -
in physics and in psychology. In optics, for example, the statement that
the angle of incidence of light rays is directly proportional to their
angle of reflection is a statement about relations among experiences, in
this case the observed or measured equality of the intensities of two pho
tometric surfaces. In psychophysics, also, mathematical treatment, or "ob
jectification," as Koffka called it, is only possible with relations among
sensations; "the single experience remains as ever unmeasurable." But it
was precisely here that the greatest progress in scientific psychology had
occurred. Koffka concluded that "all functional concepts have as their
basis experiences that have somehow been made objective. This kind of
concept formation is of the same type as the formation of physical concepts.
In fact, however, Koffkas positivism contained more than a touch
of realism. "Not even the most stringent realism can deny that at the
beginning - and even at the end - of each induction there is experience
.... Even for the physicist the immediate material is experience, only what
he makes of it is not experience any more."*^ Carl Stumpf, too, had said
that "there is no causality in the appearances"; to make science of them we
are required, in Machs words, "to hasten beyond experience".*^ The signi
ficant difference was that Stumpf denied that psychology went beyond the
given in the same way as physics did. In fact, he specifically excLuded
psychological experience from hypothetico-deductive treatment, in some cases
105 Koffka, Vorstellungen, pp. 8-9; "Descriptive and Functional Concepts,"

p. 242.
106 Koffka, Vorstellungen, p. 7; "Descriptive and Functional Concepts,"

p. 241.
107 Stumpf, "Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie," (cited in part one, n. 81),

p. 497; Mach, The Science of Mechanics (cited in part two, n. 68), p. 586.
- 313 -
even from measurement. With the assertion that functional concepts are
related to experience in the same way in the two disciplines, Koffka made
psychology into an explanatory natural science in the Machian sense, a
step for which he was severely criticized by partisans of "humanistic"

108
(geisteswissenschaftliche) psychology, among others. Yet, Koffka might
well have included Mach himself in his strictures; for Mach had used the
term "sensation" both descriptively and, in the case of "space sensations,"
"sensations of direction," or "sensations of motion," as an explanatory
tool. By admitting "simple perceptions" to the descriptive fold, Koffka
could avoid such limitations and open the door to psychological realism, while
retaining a Machian concept of natural science. In a very Important sense,
then, this was an attempt to reconcile Mach and Stumpf, to combine realistic
epistemology and neopositivistic philosophy of science.
The distinction between descriptive and functional concepts became
the basis of much of Koffka's subsequent systematic thinking. However,
there were a number of weaknesses in this schema, at least at this early
stage. One of these was the problematic relationship between functional
concepts and the "psychical functions" described by Stumpf and others. Some
of Stumpf*s functions, such as noticing or judging, were allegedly observ
able, and thus on the "descriptive" side of Koffka's dividing line. Others,
such as "summation," were responsible for the given, thus "functional" in
Koffka's sense. Koffka apparently recognized this ambiguity when he assert
ed that the inhibition we experience every day is not the same as the re-
108 Otto von der Pfordten, "Beschreibende und erklarende Psychologie,"

Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 28 (1913), pp. 302-23.
- 314 -
troactive inhibition sometimes invoiced to explain certain recognition

109
phenomena. But his awareness of the problem did not solve :.it.
Equally unclear was the relationship between mathematical and
biological senses of the term. In his Substance and Function, published
the year before, Ernst Cassirer praised the turn to functional concepts
as an important methodological advance, but he ignored the biological
in favor of the formal and mathematical aspects. Mach had solved the pro
blem by saying that mathematical functions are also biologically function
al, that the economy of thought serves important practical purposes.
Koffka did not raise this issue explicitly here. Biology was strangely ab
sent from the book; so were physiological correlates, despite what he
had just written about the significance of "gnostic" functions. In fact,
he defended his functional concepts against physiological hypotheses.
"In a time when physiological processes are nearly all still hypothetical,"
he wrote, "the use of functional concepts seems economically and epistemolo-
gically much less open to criticism than physiologizing." He admitted that
their relation to reality remained unclear, but "it is enough that they
bring real experiences into ordered, law-like relation."^
It also remained unclear to what extent this could be achieved,
even with Koffkas own experimental results. Though he had demonstrated the
superior sharpness of concepts like "task" oder Titcheners mixed usage of
terms like "attention," it was difficult to see how the descriptive findings
of the Wurzburg school, including Koffkas own classification of types of
109 Koffka, Vorstellungen, p. 6; "Descriptive and Functional Concepts,"

p. 238.
110 Koffka, Vorstellungen, p. 14 & n. 1.
- 315 -
imagery, could all be subsumed under functional concepts, or bow function
al concepts could all be "objectified" in the manner of psychophysics.
With his own distinction Koffka had pointed to a major weakness of the Wurz
burg school, in so far as it aspired to scientific status- The quantifi
cation of quality, it seemed, would remain a program, not a fact, with such
data. In the end, Koffka's conceptual distinction was a graft attached
to the main body of the work. One way out was to choose a different topic
of investigation, one more amenable to the application of Wertheimer's exem
plar. Koffka had already begun to move in this direction by this time;
we will examine the results shortly.
b. Kohler: Critique of the "ConstancyHypothesis"
Meanwhile, Wolfgang Kohler had developed his own conceptual critique
of his elders psychology. He had continued his acoustical research in
Frankfurt with a variety of subjects, including school children. The third
instalment: of results focused, among other things, on the problem of the
"hearing out" of partial tones raised by Cornelius twenty years before. Koh
ler provided empirical evidence to support the contention that the operation
of "hearing out" can produce tones that did not exist before. Under normal
listening conditions, he argued, the partials are not only unnoticed; they
are not there at all.*** The methodological and epistemological implications
111 Kohler, "Akustische Untersuchungen III & IV. Vorlaufige Mitteilung,"

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 64 (1913), pp. 92-105, esp. pp. 99 ff.;
Akustische Untersuchungen III," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 72 (1915)
pp. 1-192, esp. pp. 121 ff.
- 316 -
of this work merged with those of Wertheimer's research, and Kohler ela
borated on them in the essay "On Unnoticed Sensations and Errors of Judg
ment," published in 1913.
The focus of Kohlers critique was what he called the "constancy
hypothesis" (Konstanzannahme). The designation did not refer to the
"constancies" of color, size and form described and researched by Hering
and others. Rather, these "constancies" were evidence against the view
Kohler now attacked. This he described variously as (1) the idea that cer
tain fixed "correlations" hold between single stimuli and single sensations
that "have a general validity beyond observation," (2 ) "the absolute rule
of the stimulus," and (3) the dependence of sensation or its attributes "on
the stimuli and their peripheral reception," or "the tendency to regard
perceptions and sensations as much as possible as unambiguously determined

112
by peripheral stimulation." Kohler did not discuss or define these terms
systematically, but his target was clear enough - the simplifying assumption
shared by Helmholtz and Stumpf that one-to-one relations of stimuli and
sensation persist, even when they are "unnoticed." The indirect target was
the epistemological presupposition that lay behind this view - Humean phe
nomenalism, with its one-to-one correspondence of impressions and ideas, or
sensations and images.
112 Kohler, "fiber unbemerkte Empfindungen und Urteilstauschungen," Zeit

schrift fur Psychologie, 66 (1913), pp. 51-80; "On Unnoticed Sensa
tions and Errors of Judgment," trans. Helmut E. Adler, in Mary Henle,
ed., The Selected Papers of Wolfgang Kohler (New York, 1971), pp. 13-
39. Citations are to the translation, here pp. 14 & 14, n. 1, 17,
35-36.
- 317 -
As Kohler acknowledged, the constancy hpyothesis had been under at
tack for over twenty years. Even Helmholtz had said that sensations did
not offer an absolutely exact, point-for-point image of the physical envi-.
ronment; and exceptions had always been recognized, especially in pathologic
al cases. Stumpf had gone still further in this direction, especially in
his treatment of tonal fusion; yet he, like others, had retained "this de
sire for constancy." Kohler cited the criticisms of Cornelius, Hillebrand
and others, though not that of James. These latter attacks, particularly
the long debate with Felix Krueger, had forced Stumpf to admit that the view
was a hypothesis and not a proven fact. Stumpf replied to Kruegers charge
of "false atomism" that "there is indeed a kind of atomism with regard to
sensory phenomena,'" which "'must be admitted as one possible general point

113
of view for relating observed facts - one need not be dogmatic about it."
This gave Kohler the opening he needed. Instead of attacking the
views of his teacher as an absurdity, he proposed to show that the constan
cy hypothesis was untenable without assuming entities and acts that could
neither be verified nor falsified, the "unnoticed sensations" and "errors of
judgment" in his title. Kohler's strategy was to treat the constancy hypo
thesis as the core of a poorly constructed "research programme." According
to Imre Lakatos, such programmes, if properly constructed, consist of a stable
core of firmly held but untested central principles and a surrounding ring
of auxiliary hypotheses that are deduced from the central principles, but can
113 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," esp. pp. 15, 19; Stumpf, "Differenzto-
ne und Konsonanz," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 59 (1911), p. 175,
cited in Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," p. 16.
- 318 -
be tested and falsified without fatal consequences for the theory as a
whole. Put in these terms, Kohlers contention was that this relationship
did not hold in this case. Here the auxiliary hypotheses are not only de
ductions from but necessary supports for the theory; and they are not pre
dictive, but untestable, and therefore "unsuitable from the scientific

- of- view.
point - ..114
Specifically, Kohler showed that there were and could be no indepen
dent criteria to decide about the application of these auxiliary hypothe
ses in particular cases. He examined three possible criteria directly.
The first, and most frequently applied, was the idea that "suitable behavior,"
such as attention and practice, can bring previously unnoticed sensations to
light. This, Kohler argued, is circular on its face. If sensations were
unnoticed before, or are now, we can know this only by inference, not by
observation; but the premise from which the inference is made is the constan
cy hypothesis. Thus, Kohler charged, the way is open to arbitrariness.
Stumpf, for example, attributed the masking of weak tones by other, simultaneous
ly sounded tones not to difficulties of observation, as his adversary Krueger
did, but to their "relative influence on the strength of sensations." When
he admits that suitable direction of attention can strengthen these weak tones,
"it is not clear why" he can say that attention can influence sensory material
here, but not in "a hundred other cases." Stumpf writes further that even
centrally produced changes can be eliminated with practice and attention;
114 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," p. 18. For Lakatos conception of "re

search programmes," see "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific
Research Programmes," in'Imre Lakatos & Ian Musgrave, eds., Criticism
and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge, England, 1970), pp. 91-196.
- 319 -
"but now errors of judgment are robbed of their only distinguishing cha
racteristic," since they are supposed to refer to peripherally received sti
muli. Thus, if we assume, as observation tells us, that in cases of "great
numbers of stimuli or of stimulus "complexes" factors such as attention, set
and the like may influence sensory processes directly, only the constancy
hypothesis stands in the way of accepting it. *^
A second criterion usually offered, especially for the existence
of "errors of judgment," is the existence of varying reports about similar
stimuli. This could indicate that errors had been made that were correct
able once proper conditions had been established. To this Kohler replied
that no one denies that the reports even of experienced subjects can be
unreliable. He even recognized what modern psychologists call the demand
character of the experiment, the tendency of subjects to produce the pheno
mena called for. But in most cases, he maintained, "errors of judgment"
are really only slight deviations from the expected, "where even naive sub
jects make definite statements with the greatest confidence ... that do not
fit the stimulus determination of sensations." Here, again, there was
little reason not to accept the reports, rather than the hypothesis.**^
The third criterion,situations in which judgments of this kind are impossible,
actually decides against the hypothesis. Children, too, possess size and
color constancy; this cannot be due to errors of judgment, since these are
supposed to depend on experience. "The vagueness of the criteria," Kohler
concluded, "acts in fact like a bonus to maintain artificiality ... again
115 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," pp. 21, 24-25.
116 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," p. 23.
- 320 -
and again, systematic interests come into conflict with those of research
in the true sense ... the interests of a conservative system can be over
whelming in the absence of independent criteria."*
The phrase "research in the true sense" pointed to the most serious
charge in Kohlers catalogue, the claim that the assumption of the constancy
hypothesis produced an "attitude" (Einstellung) that had an inhibiting
effect on observation. Here Kohler's tone became more passionate:
How often have we heard the words error of judgment,'

'unnoticed sensation,' and how quickly they are brought up
when something really new has been observed anywhere ....
The mere term sometimes carries more weight than the most
careful observations - just the phrase alone! [This can]
invalidate a perfectly good observation ... finish it off
with empty words.
Kohler even went so far as to accuse two - unnamed r laboratories of sup
pressing contrary evidence. The assumption of a punctiform, one-to-one
correspondence between stimuli and sensations might once have been a use
ful way to systematize "the young science" of psychology, he conceded.
Now, however, "the actual effect of these expedients which guarantee the system
is often enough mainly to discredit our one way of moving forward - observa
tions and the pleasure in them - and thus to paralyse the will to advance.
118
Fortunate are those who consider these words exaggerated!"
Thus, although he referred to empirical evidence against it and
applied carefully constructed logical arguments, as well, Kohler's critique
of the constancy hypothesis was at bottom practical. He pointed, in essence,
to the discrepancy between the idea of experimental phenomenology and the
117 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," pp. 26-27.
- 321 -
actual treatment of its results. However, his response was not to reject
the validity of the project but to plead for its realization, to guarantee
"the joy of observing, the zest for progress" - primarily, of course, for
119
those who know how to observe. The tone of such writing and the use
of terms like "conservative system" are clearly that of a younger scientist
pressing forward toward new discoveries but feeling held back by old ideas.
Felix Krueger had claimed years before that Stumpf's theory inhibit
ed progress, but he had also offered a theory of his own, based on Wundt's
concept of "assimilation," to explain the relation of difference tones
and consonance. His insistence on this theory may have limited the effect
of his criticism. Kohler was more reticent about his theoretical commit
ments. Apparently he was trying first to come to terms with his ownscienti-
fic socialization, to declare his independence from his teacher on terms
both of them could respect and without bitter polemics. But his views
came through clearly enough at the end. He recommended "tentatively" that
the assumptions he criticized "be given up entirely, and that the facts
of inadequate judgments not grounded in perception be used only where they
can really be established .... A simplicity of sensory psychology which I
believe is premature and artificial will thereby be sacrificed"; for now
"we assume" that central factors also play "an essential role" in perception,
and that simpler relations dominated by peripheral factors are "limiting
cases":
A large and significant part of the properties of perception is

neglected which recede into the background in those limiting
cases achieved by means of [laboratory] isolation,but are often
- 322 -
much more important for a psychology of perception than the

usual sensory attributes - as soon as the remaining factors apart
from peripheral conditions also exert their influence. This
applies particularly to the psychological correlates of sti
mulus complexity, and specifically to the everyday perception
of things.
Anyone can see that the theoretical situation will thus become less simple
at first, Kohler acknowledged; but the result in the end may be "a deeper
120
understanding of the whole field."
Although he emphasized logical and practical arguments in his cri
tique, Kohler did not show how his alternative proposal held up any better
either logically or practically than the views he attacked. Instead he
implicitly recognized the deeper issues at stake by defending his alter
native against anticipated arguments addressed to them. The real basis
of psychologistss allegiance to the constancy hypothesis was the con
viction that this view conformed most completely with a particular con
cept of natural science. The best case in point was Helmholtz's direct
application of assumptions derived from Newtonian physics to vision and
hearing. Departure from the constancy hypothesis could thus imply de
parture from the fold of scientific psychology. Kohler therefore took
care to state that he, too, believed that sensations conformed to natural
law, though he did not specify what concept of natural law he meant. He
also took care to make clear, in a footnote, that he was not abjuring the
idea of physiological foundations when he disputed the êxclusive dominance
of peripheral factors; "I regard the other variables also as physiological

..121
m nature.
121 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," pp. 17, 24 n. 20.
- 323 -
As for physics itself, Kohler cited Bergsons Essay on the Immediate
Data of Consciousness, which he was teaching at the time, to support his
contention that the perceptions most often used in that science, too, are
conventionally limited to "a very small number of types," principally
the coincidence of a contour (such as a pointer reading or a mercury minis-
cus) with another (the scale mark) and an adjacent number. The fact
that such perceptions obey the usual laws says nothing about the rest of
perception, Kohler argued. Nor should the idea that physics is based on
such perceptions restrict the scientific assumptions psychologists, allow

122
themselves to make. Thus, ironically, Kohler used one of the key points
of Bergsons critique of natural science to demonstrate the irrelevance
of scientistic critiques of his own position.
Another basis of belief in the constancy hypothesis was the con
viction of its teleological value. As Kohler formulated the issue, the
question ran: "How could creatures survive who would be informed about
reality by sensations corresponding so little to it?" His answer was that
many phenomena that do not correspond to the constancy hypothesis, such
as illusions, "have enormous teleological value." This was particularly
true of size and color constancy, which must also be considered illusions
according to the constancy hypothesis. In any case, even biologically neu
tral illusions require explanation. Benussi had brought a case in point
with his work on the MullerLyer illusion. Why is it "so very difficult in
the Muller-Lyer figure to compare just those lines in isolation which the
task requires us to compare? How does it happen that these lines do not
- 324 -
allow themselves to be separated from the added lines?" This "can only be
a matter of the characteristics of the perception itself. Ultimately the
whole illusion must be rooted in these properties. Present-day psychology
of perception does not have a satisfactory answer" to his problem. But
Kohler left no doubt that "a resolute investigation" of such phenomena would
lead to a "theoretical treatment of the visual field which would contradict

123
the basic assumptions" he had attacked. The facts might be more easily
explained, Kohler thought, "if we regard as the *immediately given,'" and
certainly as the biologically primary reality, not *sensations', but (for

124
the most part) things." In such remarks the epistemological implications
of Kohler's position were evident. Whether he meant by "things" real ob
jects or Hering's "seen objects"', the rejection of both Machian and Humean
phenomenalism was clear.
Kohler thus made more explicit an a general level what Wertheimer had
implied in the single case of motion perception. He proposed nothing less
than a restructuring of the entire categorical system in sensory psycho
logy, the end of limiting distinctions between "physiological" and "psycho
logical" processes, between sensations and judgments upon sensation. Though
he abstained from epistemological arguments, his conclusion also questioned
the validity of a cornerstone of both empiricist and rationalist epistemolo-
gy. However, though Kohler had shown the untenability of one of the most
important supports of the older "new" psychology, at least as it was prac
ticed in Berlin and Frankfurt, he had given only the briefest indication
123 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," pp. 36, 29-30.
124 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," p. 36, n. 37.
- 325 -
of the sort of conception that he wished to put in its place. He made
no explicit reference to Gestalt theory, and his only allusion to Wert
heimer's speculations was a vague reference to "plausible physiological
hypotheses" in a footnote. Nonetheless, with his critique Kohler had
established a point of departure for positive theoretical alternatives,
and also clarified both the positive and negative desiderata of the new
approach: "trust in direct observation," or psychological realism, on the
one hand; and the renunciation of hypothasized "sensations" or "judgments,"

^ 125
on the other.
c. The Transformation in Perceptual Theory: A Research Program Takes Shape
Wertheimer and his coworkers were not alone in their efforts to re
construct the vocabulary of psychology. The years from 1910 to 1912 saw
an upsurge of research and theory pointing to a major change of orienta
tion in the field. At the 1912 congress of the Society for Experimental
Psychology, when the publication of Wertheimer's results was first announc
ed, at least four speakers presented papers calling for such a shift. Wal
ter Poppelreuter, who had published his quantitative study of size con
stancy the year before, now offered research or imagery reproduction in
which he emphasized the significance of what he called "total images"

126
(Gesamtvorstellungen). Presenting the first fruits of research on repro-
126 Walter Poppelreuter, "Zwei elementare Reproduktionsgesetze zur Er-

klarung einiger hoherer Denk- und Willensvorgange," in Friedrich
Schumann, ed., Bericht fiber den 5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psy
chologie ... 1912 (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 159-61.
- 326 -
ductive thinking which he began under Kulpe in 1910, Otto Selz indicated
the importance of what he called the "total task" (Gesamtaufgabe). He
asked his subjects to designate the "whole" or a "part" of the object
named in a stimulus word, or to designate something "superior" to or
"alongside" it (tlberordnung and Nebenordntmg) . To solve such problems they
often performed other operations first, which also possessed "task" cha
racter, such as calling up a memory. Selz published these findings the
next year as part of a comprehensive critique of mechanistic associationism,
which he called "constellation theory." His alternative was a "complex
extension theory," in which thought is characterized as a dynamic process,
the "actualization" of "dispositional" knowledge on the basis of reflex-

127
like "schemata" or "operations."
In addition, Karl Buhler offered his discovery, also made at Kiil-
pe's institute in Bonn, of immediate "impressions of proportion." Given,
for example,two rectangles placed alongside one another, with bases of
the same length, equal angles and parallel sides, but with different heights,
he found, one could be judged "slimmer" or "plumper" than the other.
After a certain number of exposures, such judgments worked like any other
judgment of difference. Threshold values could be obtained for them with
standard psychophysical techniques. Buhler said such impressions could be
called "the Gestalt quality of the compared rectangles," and attributed them
127 Otto Selz, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen iiber den Verlauf determinier-

ter intellektueller Prozesse," in Schumann, ed., Bericht, pp. 229-34;
fiber die Gesetze des geordneten Denkverlaufs (Stuttgart, 1913), esp.
pp. 1 ff., 84 ff., 177 f., 194-95. For further discussions of Selz's
theory, see George Humphrey, Thinking (cited in part two, n. 211 ),
chap. 5, and Hans-Berahard Seebohm, Otto Selz (Heidelberg, 1970).
- 327 -
to "operations" intermediate between sensation and judgment. Finally,
in a major programmatic paper, the Kiel psychologist Gotz Martius called
for a theoretical reconstruction of psychology. In opposition to his
teacher Wundt's principle of "creative synthesis" from hypothetical "ele
ments," Martius proposed to begin with the phenomena taken as wholes, and
129
to establish law-like relations among these. Clearly, a consensus was
building for the application of some kind of holistic vocabulary in psy
chology.
Kurt Koffka did not fail to notice these developments; he contribut
ed to the discussion of both Poppelreuter and Selz's papers. He present
ed the content and implications of this and other work to the educated
reading public in a series of reviews for the Deutsche Literaturzeitung in
1913, and in an article on the psychology of perception for a newly-founded
journal, Die Geisteswissenschaften, in 1914. In the later piece he began
with the announcement that a complete "transformation" (Umschwung) had
occurred in perceptual theory, for which the way had been prepared by
Ewald Hering more than thirty years before. Formerly, he said, "one
approached the study of perception not without prejudice, but sub specie
128 Karl Buhler, "tiber die Vergleichung von Raumgestalten," in Schumann,

ed., Bericht ... 1912, pp. 183-85; Die Gestaltwahmehmungen (cited
in part two, n. 278), esp. part 3, sects. 3 & 4, pp. 138 ff., 182 ff.
129 Gotz Martius,"tiber synthetische und analytische Psychologies" in

Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur experimen-
telle Psychologie ... 1912 (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 261-81. Cf. Theo
Herrmann, "Ganzheitspsychologie und Gestalttheorie," (cited in part
two, n. 60), pp. 595, 613.
- 328 -
sensation," while "the mere description of the given took second place."
Now scientists begin with "the immediately presented perceptual facts,"
with the result that in extreme cases "sensation is understood from the
point of view of perception, instead of the other way around.
Part of the shift, Koffka wrote, was the recognition that the con
cept of sensation itself is not as clear as it was thought to be. He sup
ported this first by pointing to a phenomenological study by a student of
Husserl's which showed that the term "sensation" actually covers a varie
ty of psychical states. He relied mainly, however, on Kohler's essay on
"unnoticed sensations." This showed, he said, that it is "practical from
the viewpoint of scientific technique to give up the view that the stimulus
alone decides the sensation, and instead to inquire about the essence of
the function whose members include stimulus and experience." The second
half of this statement is Koffka's addition. With this he began to subt
ly integrate Kohler's critique of the constancy hypothesis into his own
methodological conceptions. In the process, the term "function" took
on a rather different meaning from what it had had for Koffka before. The
implication was that the other studies he reviewed could be assimilated
under this perspective, because they all concerned "the factors which inter-
131
vene between stimuli and sensations."
Most thoroughly reviewed were the research monographs of David Katz,
Erich Jaensch and Karl Buhler. Jaensch's work fitted the new perspective
130 Koffka, "Psychologie der Wahmehmung," Die Geisteswissenschaften,

1 (1914), pp. 711-16, 796-800, here pp. 711-12.
131 Koffka, "Psychologie der Wahmehmung," p. 713.
- 329 -
particularly well, as he had shown the importance of attention as a determin
ing factor in perception, and had tried to specify its role objectively in
stead of merely invoking it. Valuable as this work was, however, Koffka
found it "all too one-sided," because he neglected the problem of form.
This was the topic of Buhler's research, and Koffka was most cautious in
his attempt to deal with it. He praised Buhler's monograph as "a rich and
thorough work," which proves "the reality and independence of the Gestalt
(versus the sensations).! The major difference between his perspective and
"our own" is that Buhler accepts the existence of "simple" Gestalten, but
wishes to build up more complicated ones from these. Yet in the end,
Koffka claimed, Buhler's own results force him to depart from this stand
point. He acknowledged, for example, that an object's "total form" plays
a role in the perception of proportion, even when it is not attended to.
Thus, as Koffka put it in his earlier review in 1913,"the absolute aspect
of Gestalt versus proportion impressions seems to play a far greater role

132
in these experiments than the author admits."
Thus all of these results were part of the transformation, but none
of them went far enough. The real "turning point, Koffka claimed, was
Wertheimer's "fully new Gestalt theory." Though he carefully described
Wertheimer's experimental findings, it was clear that he was referring pri
marily to the notion of physiological "whole-processes" and the extension
of these to stationary Gestalten. If the implications of this were fully
132 Koffka, review of Buhler, "Die Gestaltwahmehmungen," Deutsche Litera-

turzeitung, 34 (1913), esp. p. 3098; "Psychologie der Wahmehmung,"
pp. 798-99. Cf. Buhler, Die Gestaltwahrnehmungen, esp. pp. 175,
206.
- 330 -
carried through, Koffka thought, then "psychological analysis (in the tra
ditional sense) is dispensed with." The older view must suppose physiologic
al summations; if these are given up, then "psychological .'analysis is in
principle impossible." The effect of Jaensch's work had been to expand
the traditionally accepted functional relationship from E = f (R) (i.e.,
sensation as a sole function of the stimulus) to E = f (R, A). This func
tion can remain in effect, Koffka wrote, but only if "E" meant Erlebnis,
not Empfindung (experience, not sensation). Sensation is "no longer the
simplest elementary experience ... but sensation and perception become equal-
133
ly probable." It was this conclusion that justified the proclamation at
the beginning of the article. Koffka's strategy had evidently been to
make that announcement so radical that only Wertheimer's theory could
match it sufficiently.
In fact, however, these implications, and Koffka's newly-found theo
retical confidence, were not drawn from Wertheimer's paper alone. They
were also products of the research program Koffka had inaugurated the year
before. He had begun to apply Wertheimer's approach experimentally as
early as 1912, using laboratory space at the university clinic in GieBen
provided by the psychiatrist Robert Sommer, who also purchased a Schumann
tachistoscope for Koffka's use. Although he was formally not permitted to
oversee dissertations, Koffka managed to assemble a small group of coworkers,
including Friedrich Kenkel, a student, and Adolph Korte, a Gymnasium teacher.
He presented their first results as the beginning of a series to be called
"Contributions to the Psychology of Gestalt and Movement Experiences." The
133 Koffka, "Psychologie der Wahmehmung," pp. 714-16. Emphasis mine.
- 331 -
series was later retitled "Contributions to Gestalt Psychology",but not
until the first four papers were republished in book form in 1919. In
his introduction to the first paper, Koffka presented the methodological
side of the new research program as follows:
We attempt on the one hand to describe the phenomena as exactly as

possible, and on the other to find lawlike dependencies between
them and the objective existing processes (between experience
and stimulus); we do without every kind of postulated conscious
ness, unnoticed sensations, unnoticed activities, and we believe
we are at least methodologically justified in doing so. Final
ly, we hope to be able to use the results of our investigations
for theoretical decisions.*34
This apparently methodological model was really a set of rules for
theory construction. Though it was structurally similar to Wertheimer's
exemplar, there were certain significant differences at each of its three
levels. Instead of asking ontological questions about the "essence" of phe
nomena, as Wertheimer did, Koffka adopted Martius' - and Ebbinghaus' - re
ference to "lawlike dependencies" among phenomena. This was consistent
with the neopositivistic conception of natural science reflected in his
own distinction between descriptive and functional concepts. However, the
"lawlike dependencies" involved here were not between or among phenomena,
but "between experience and stimulus" (Erlebnis und Reiz) a formulation
Wertheimer had not explicitly applied. This new twist posed no problems for
a Machian view of science, since in such a view stimuli and experience were
simply two different classes of phenomena. Koffka, however, referred to
134 Koffka, "Beitrage zur Psychologie der Gestalt- und Bewegungserlebnis-

se. Einleitung," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 67 (1913), pp. 352-58,
repr. in Koffka, ed., Beitrage zur Psychologie der Gestalt (Leipzig,
1919), pp. 1-6, here p. 1 .
- 332 -
stimuli as "objective existing processes," leaving the question of what
this designation meant unanswered at first. Much clearer was his adoption
of the negative desideratum propounded by Kohler, the avoidance of "un
noticed sensations" or other psychological, but unobservable processes.
According to this rule, there could be no intervening process between sti
mulus and experience. The successively presented stripes in Wertheimers
experiments are "merely stimuli for the movement experience, not contents
ul35
on which it is founded." Here Koffka indicated the fundamental differ
ence between his developing model and Benussi's version of the intentional
model; but the full significance of this became clear only later. Final
ly, although Koffka presented this last formulation as a deduction from
Wertheimers physiological hypothesis, there was no explicit reference in
the passage quoted above to the use of such hypotheses, either to o rg a n ize
or to explain the results; there was only a vague reference to using the
results themselves for heuristic purposes.
At the "descriptive" level of the program, Koffka proposed in the
first installments of the series to test what he called the "material pre
suppositions" behind Wertheimer's experiment by eliminating them one by one.
Wertheimer had presupposed that the two "stimuli for the movement experience"
are neither essentially different in extent nor very different in intensity,
and that the difference between them from which movement proceeded objective
ly existed - that the different position of the Gestalten (e.g., the stripes)
in visual space corresponded to different positions in real space. In the
135 Koffka, "Einleitung," p. 2. For this formulation Koffka cited Henry

Watt's review of Wertheimers paper, "The Psychology of Visual Mo
tion," British Journal of Psychology, 6 (1912), pp. 26-43.
- 333 -
first paper of the series, officially authored by Kenkel, Koffka eli
minated the last of these presuppositions by using the Miiller-Lyer figures
as stimuli. Whether differences in apparent size or position could induce
motion in the same way as differences in real size or position was indeed
an issue of descriptive psychology. But Koffka raised it to a more theoretic
al plane when he put the question this way: "is the relationship [Zuord-
nungj of the retinal image on the one hand and the apparent size connected
with the Gestalt experience fixed once and for all, or does it change accord-
136
ing to the complex in which the retinal image lies?"
In the figures shown, for example (Figure 10), the lines AB, CD and
EF are objectively equal, but are seen such that AB <CD <EF. If the three
figures were exposed tachistoscopically one after the other, the arrows
would be seen moving back and forth in a normal case of apparent motion.
The issue Kenkel posed was whether the difference in the apparent size of
A E
y\
B F
Figure 10: Set-ups for alpha and beta motion
Source: Koffka, "Psychologieder Wahmehmung," p. 797. Figures originally

appeared in the horizontal.
136 Koffka, "Einleitung," p. 4.
- 334 -
the middle lines -would induce additional motion phenomena. The results
were clear-cut. With successive projection of first the middle line, and
then of the extending arrows, the figure seemed to "grow" the arrows, then
to shrink back into a line. In series like the one shown, the first figure
seemed to expand and contract as the arrows flipped up and down. Subjects
found the effect "colossal" and "fantastic." Kenkel christened this new
motion phenomenon "alpha," to distinguish it from the normally observed
"beta" movement. He asserted that alpha motion appeared in the same
way as beta motion, with the same character of sensory immediacy. He noted,
however, that even distribution of attention and prolonged observation im
proved the appearance, while critical observation "disturbed" it. In ad
dition, Kenkel found that subjects tended to "prefer" expansion over con
traction, which showed that another of Wertheimer's experimental assump
tions - that the stimuli appear in a state of rest and that movement
occurs "between" them - was not exactly correct. He noted a slight "dis
quiet" in the objects, and in some cases an immediate expansion as a di
rect effect of exposition, not of subsequently induced motion. This he

137
christened "gamma" movement, the name it retains today.
While Koffka and Kenkel were at work, Benussi published demonstrations
137 Friedrich Kenkel, "Untersuchungen uber den Zusammenhang zwischen

ErscheinungsgroBe und Erscheinungsbewegung bei einigen sogenannten
optischen Taoschungen," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 67 (1913), pp.
358-449, repr. in Koffka, ed., Beitrage, pp. 6-98, here pp. 17,
21 f., 65-66. Karl Buhler had also noted that objects possessed a
tendency to expand spontaneously when presented; cf. Die Gestalt-
wahroehmungen, p. 166, and the reference there to earlier observa
tions by Schumann.
- 335 -
of the same phenomena, which he labeled "S" and "s" movement. Kenkel
claimed to have no quarrel with Benussi*s observations, only with his
interpretation of them. According to Benussi, the difference in the
relative positions of successive "phase images" (Phasenbilder) becomes
"the basis [Grundlage] of an image [Vorstellung] of an apparent motion
built [or "founded"J upon the component parts of the figure." The object
cannot be positively identified in the successive phases because of the
conditions of presentation; we therefore have a case of "production" on

138
the basis of inadequate sensory material. Kenkel replied that this
view is mere "theory". As Henri Bergson had said in "unsurpassed" fashion,
and as Wertheimer had shown empirically, the seeing of motion is not the
seeing of a series of "phases," but-"something completely unitary and not
composed of individual parts; indeed the experience as such is destroyed
by analysis." Since both alpha and beta movement possess this immediate,
unified character, Kenkel concluded, we must assume that they are rooted
in the same functional relations, expressible in the equation G = f 0J>, K).
Gestalt experiences are a function of the physical stimuli (represented

139
in the retinal image) and "the whole complex."
In his essay of 1914, Koffka improved somewhat upon the vagueness
of this last formulation. If alpha movement appears in the same way
as beta movement, he reasoned, then differences of apparent size alone
produce different nervous excitations in the brain in the same way that
138 Benussi, "Stroboskopische Scheinbewegungen und geometrisch-optische

Tauschungen" Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 24 (1912), pp. 31-
62, esp. pp. 40, 61.
139 Kenkel, "Untersuchungen," pp. 93-94, 94 n. 1.
- 336 -
differences in real size do. We would then have the same kind of proof
for the central origins of alpha movement that Exner had provided for
apparent movement in general, and therefore sufficient evidence to refute
Benussi's "production" theory. All such phenomena could thus be present
ed as the results of shifts of process in the brain, and need not be attributed
to supposed additional "psychological" processes. Koffka altered the
schematic representation of the situation accordingly. The equation now read
E = f (R, A, G); (Gestalt) experience is a function of the stimulus, central
factors such as attention, and the physiological whole processes hypothesiz
ed by Wertheimer.
Another of Koffka's coworkers, Adolph Korte, took the next step in
the research program and tested the effect of stimulus intensity on apparent
motion. He made more explicit use of Wertheimer's physiological ideas to
predict experimental results than Kenkel had done. If Wertheimer's suppo
sition of "transverse functions" were correct, and if all other variables were
held constant, he argued, the shift in stimulus intensity produced by
"noticing" the second stimulus object in preference to the first should
lead to a reversal of the flow of excitation, and hence a reversal of the
phenomenon. This in fact occurred. He called the new effect "lambda" or
"counter-movement." When he varied other stimulus factors, such as the
distance between the exposed lines or figures, the exposure time, and the
interval between exposures, Korte found a number of other, sometimes unex
pected relations. Among these was that the effect of'increased stimulus
intensity can "be compensated by increasing the distance between the stimuli.
140 Koffka, "Psychologie der Wahrnehmung," pp. 797-98.
- 337 -
Increasing the separation between the stimuli could in turn be compensated
by Lengthening the exposure time, and both could be offset by increases
in stimulus intensity or exposure interval. Further, if the separation be
tween the stimuli were increased to the point that motion was no longer
141
seen, it could be restored by making the exposure interval longer.
Korte developed a series of qualitative "laws," which continues to
bear his name,to express these relations. These were drawn from careful
ly constructed tables of observations for each subject, but Korte used the
sign-instead of a more definite mathematical symbol to show that there were
not yet strictly quantitative relations. He said that it was appropriate
to establish a qualitative classification of experience before proceeding
to quantification, and pointed to investigations then being conducted by
Koffka and Panl Cermak aimed at full mathematical specification.1^ Korte's
optimism proved to be premature. In subsequent years his "laws" were sub
jected to a variety of tests' and found to be generally accurate. But ex
ceptions were also found, and it has proved difficult to organize the nu
merous determinants of apparent motion into any sort of general theory.
Koffka himself later acknowledged that these tendencies ought to be called

143
"Korte's rules," empirical descriptions and not genuine laws. Nonethe-
141 Adolph Korte, "Kinematische Untersuchungen," Zeitschrift fur Psycho

logie, 72 (1915), pp. 193-296, repr. in Koffka, ed., Beitrage, pp. 99-
202. Citations are to the reprint, here pp. 198-99, 183 ff.
142 Korte, "Kinematische Untersuchungen," p. 192.
143 Koffka, Principles, pp. 295-96. For an assessment of early attempts

to test Korte*s laws, see Boring, Sensation and Perception, pp. 598 ff.;
for later work see Lloyd Kaufmann, Sight and Mind (New York, 1974),
esp. pp. 394-95, and the literature cited there.
- 338 -
less, Korte had set up an array of espirically testable parameters for
apparent motion, and thus shown that Wertheimer's approach to the problem
could lead to fruitful experimental work. As he put it, his results show
ed that "there are no equal components [gleiche Bestandteile] at all in
the experience." The two object expositions and the interval between them
are not three stimuli, but a single total stimulus. Wertheimer's theore
tical sketch was not a "mere cloak" (Mantelchen) to arbitrarily cover ex
perimental results, but "the key to an entirely new, inexhaustable problem

,,144
area.
Unfortunately, Korte did not live to see the fruit of his efforts.
He was called to the front, and later died in battle. Koffka completed
and edited the work for publication, adding a number of experiments conduct
ed by him and his wife. This was the last experimental work done under
Koffka's direction until the early 1920s. During the war he was involved
in research for the German navy in Kiel and elsewhere, and his scholarly
production was limited to theoretical papers and review essays. However,
these were by no means insubstantial. On the contrary, the first of them
could be called the birth piece of Gestalt theory as a psychological system.
d. Koffka versus Benussi: The Transformation Systematized
The essay was entitled "Toward the Foundation of the Psychology of
Perception: A Dispute with Vittorio Benussi." It was written in response
to Benussi's review of Kenkel's paper in the Archiv fur die gesamte Psycho
144 Korte, "Kinematische Untersuchungen," pp. 182, 202.
- 339 -
logie. Benussi emphasized both his priority of discovery and the general
agreement between Kenkel*s findings and his own, but he took umbrage at
Kenkel*s designation of his interpretation as mere "theory." The differ
ences in their views, he claimed, were either merely terminological or
based on "misunderstanding." A succession of "phases," he said, is a con
dition for the appearance of a Gestalt-image (Vorstellung) of motion. But
such a succession need not be in the phenomenon itself, nor had he ever
held such a position. Instead he had said that "the apprehension of an
apparently unified change of position i the apprehension of movement";
the S, or alpha, impression is "no less 'immediate' for me than it is for
Koffka and Kenkel." Had they taken note of this, they could have saved
"the loving reference to Bergson ... for a more appropriate occasion."1^
However, Benussi wrote, if Koffka and Kenkel mean that alpha and
beta or and js motion are given in the same way, this is correct only
for the way in which they are apprehended. But if they mean the way in
which the two kinds of impression actually arise, then this is "epistemolo-
gically not justified"; for alpha movement can be eliminated by ch an gi n g
to a more critical type of apprehension, as Koffka and Kenkel themselves
admit, whereas this is not true of beta movement. The related fact
that alpha, or S_ motion disappears when "the couplex is apprehended so
that the moving arrows are grasped as independent objects" shows that these
phenomena are "not unambiguously [eindeutig] determined by the stimuli."
145 Benussi, review of Koffka, "Einleitung," and Kenkel, "Untersuchungen,"

Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 32 (1914), Literatur-Teil, pp. 50-
57, here pp. 55-56. Cf. Benussi, "Stroboskopische Scheihbewegungen,"
p. 41.
- 340 -
In this essential point, Benussi claimed, "Koffka and Kenkel thus agree
with me." But it was precisely because of this fact - determined by
observation, and not by "theory" - that Benussi attributed the phenomena
to "presentations (or images) of extra-sensory origin" (Vorstellungen aufier-
sinnlicher Provenienz), as he now called them. The difference between his
"unified Gestalt apprehension" and Koffka and Kenkel's term "distribution
of attention" was therefore merely terminological. Benussi said he could
not understand why they paid so much attention to Wertheimer's paper, al
though there is no mention of alpha motion in it, while they completely
ignore the work of others, such as Paul Linke, who are at least trying
to establish an adequate psychological interpretation of the facts, an at
tempt "certainly no less worthwhile" than Wertheimer's "short-circuit
analogy." Even so, "where there are still so many facts to establish, the
pleasure of a common effort cannot be dampened by theoretical divergences,

. divergences. ,146
or even apparent
Actually, the differences were quite real. Since his 1904 study of
the Muller-Lyer illusion, Benussi had extended both his style of experimen
tation and his theoretical commitment to styles, or types of apprehension
to a wide variety of other illusions, both in vision and in other sense

147
modalities. At the same time, he had expanded both his experimentation
and his theorizing from illusions to ambiguous figures in general, which
146 Benussi, review, pp. 50, 55, 57; cf. Benussi, "Die Gestaltwahraehmun-
gen," (cited in part two, n. 218), p. 267.
147 Benussi, "Experimentelles uber Vorstellungsinadaquatheit," Zeitschrift

fiir Psychologie, 42 (1906), pp. 22-55; 45 (1907), pp. 188-235:
- 341 -
be called "Gestalt-ambiguous complexes" to distinguish them from situations

148
m which the sensory material is not constant. This allowed him to cover
both ambiguous drawings and illusions within the same conceptual framework.
His stroboscopic experiments with the Muller-Lyer figure offered a good
example of the advantages of the change. Here, as elsewhere, the issue
was no longer whether or not subjects had the illusion, but the more general
question of the relationship of modes of apprehension to sensory material.
Thus, as his review of Koffka and Kenkel*s work also showed, Benussi
had retained the fundamental distinction between "apprehension" and objec
tive states of affairs, which he had derived from Meinongs distinction
between content and "object." He still saw unified acts of "Gestalt appre
hension" as the primary condition for the apppearance of Gestalten in con
sciousness. As a prize example he cited the role of "grouping" in the
experience of rhythm, taking over and confirming results from Koffkas dis-
149
sertation wth generous acknowledgement. By 1914 he had developed this
distinction into a full-scale typology, according to which apprehension
style conditioned the time required to perceive Gestalten, and was itself
coordinated with the character trait of being more or less "critical.
148 Benussi, "tjber die Motive der Scheirikorperlichkeit bei unikehrbaren

Zeichnungen," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 20 (1911), pp. 363-
96; cf. "Gesetze der inadaquaten Gestaltauffassung," Archiv fur die
gesamte Psychologie, 32 (1914), pp. 396-419, esp. p. 400.
149 Benussi, Psychologie der Zeitauffassung (Heidelberg, 1913), esp. pp.

102 f., 145 ff.
150 Benussi, "Versuchezur Bestimmung der Gestaltzeit," in Friedrich Schu

mann, ed., Bericht liber den 6. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie
... 1914 (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 71-73, esp. 72-73; cf. Benussi, "Geset
ze", pp. 409-10.
- 342 -
However, he had also acknowledged that apprehension style was a condition,
not an explanation of Gestalt perception. In the case of the Muiler-Lyer
figure, the outward or inward direction of the arrows has the effect of
increasing or decreasing the "noticeability" (Auffalligkeit) of the center
line with respect to its surroundings; artifical distribution of this could
reverse the illusion. This meant that the organization of the figure
itself, not cognitive style alone, must be involved. Wolfgang Kohler made
precisely this point in his essay of 1913.
Nonetheless, Benussi*s ontological position remained unchanged. In
stead of referring explicitly to a "production" process, he now preferred
to speak, rather vaguely, of "images of extra-sensory origin" (Vorstellungen
auflersinnlicher Provenienz). But he continued to cite his earlier work,
with its terminology of "superius" and "inferiora", and he expressly stated

152
that it was this idea that he applied in his work on time apprehension.
In his commentary on Buhler's monograph, for example, he questioned the
work's title, saying that he preferred "Gestalt imagination" (Gestaltvorstel-
lung) to Gestalt perception (Gestaltwahmehmung) :
one is accustomed to speak of perceptions only where the apprehen

sion of a reality is involved .... Gestalten, after all, are
unreal [unwirkliche] ideal objects of a higher order; their con
tents are real, that is that side of the psychical experience,
in this case an image, according to which one or the other object
is presented.
Benussi, too, stressed the priority of Gestalt apprehensions over the impres
sions of proportion discussed by Buhler. "That which is called plump or
151 Benussi, "Die Gestaltwahmehmungen," pp. 276-77.
152 Benussi, Zeitauffassung, pp. 489-90, n. 1; cf. "Die Gestaltwahmehmun

gen," p. 263.
- 343 -
slim must have already been apprehended as a Gestalt before such impres
sions can occur. But their relation to reality. remained as before; the
impressions of the four sides of the rectangle provide only "the basis
15^
[Grundlagel of the Gestalt objects which are to be compared." In the
same place Benussi said he preferred to keep to the facts, not to dis
cuss epistemology; but from the outset it was clear that the terminology
involved was so theory-laden that keeping to the facts would be difficult.
In his 1913 essay, Kohler had praised BenussiTs work, and offered
the opinion that it had been received with silence, despite the wealth of
assembled facts, largely because of its connection with Meinong's theory
of objects. Benussi acknowledged that his work had been greeted largely
with silence, but he preferred to interpret it as a silence of agreement;
for the hypotheses he had refuted had not been offered again in the same
form. His allegiance to Meinong's theory remained unswerving. Considering
that this array of experimental results had been obtained in order "to
determine the truth value" of that theory, he said, his allegiance was
154
eminently justified. Any dispute with Benussi, it seemed, would have to
be an argument about epistemology and ontology as well as psychology.
However, Koffka's reply seemed to avoid these issues. Benussi's as
sertion that their differences were based on "misunderstanding" matte it
necessary, he said, to juxtapose the two theories "at length" to clarify
their relative success "in formulating experimental problems." Koffka's
tone was friendly but uncompromising. He did not wish to overlook "that
153 Benussi, "Die Gestaltwahroehmungen," pp. 256, n. 1, 284.
154 Kohler, "Unnoticed Sensations," p. 30, n. 30; Benussi, "Gesetze,"

p. 419.
- 344 -
which is common to both" approaches; the primary goal is to achieve the
"cooperative work" which Benussi also desired. Yet he undermined the basis
for that cooperation by eliminating Meinong's theory of objects from the
discussion at the start. Though he insisted that his critique was "in no
sense a value judgment upon a theory from which Benussi has derived a number
of fruitful new research problems and methods," he would not deal with
that theory here, in order to keep this a "specifically psychological dis
cussion" and avoid lengthy treatments of other i s s u e s . A s we shall see,
however, this did not mean that Koffka failed to note the epistemological
and ontological implications of his position.
Confining the argument to psychology was, in a way, a self-identi
fication; for Koffka was, indeed, more a psychologist than a philosopher.
But it was also a clever debater's gambit. Instead of engaging in diffi
cult epistemological discussions, Koffka could fight on ground selected by
himself - the distinction between descriptive and functional concepts. Kenkel
had argued at the end of his paper that alpha and beta motion are functional
ly as well as descriptively the same, he said. It was this that Benussi de
nied. But since he could produce no descriptive evidence for the pro
cess of "production" - a fact that he himself admitted - then it must be
a functional concept. It can therefore have only heuristic character; but
it can only be of heuristic value if it can aid us to make clear descriptive
155 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung der Wahrnehmungspsychologie. Eine Auseinan-

dersetzung mit V. Benussi," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 73 (1915),
pp. 11-90, repr. in Koffka, ed., Beitrage, pp. 203-82; abr. trans. in
Ellis, Source Book, pp. 371-78. Citations are to the original, here
pp. 14-15.
- 345 -
distinctions among the phenomena, and if it can lead to clear experimental
decisions about their theoretical treatment. Koffka sought to show that
neither Benussi*s criteria for "inadequate Gestalt apprehension" nor his
hypothesized production process fulfilled these requirements.
Koffka discussed all of Benussi's criteria for "inadequate Gestalt
apprehension," but concentrated on three: the absense of stimuli (Reizlo-
sigkeit) - that is, the qualitative discontinuity between stimulus and phe
nomenon - ambiguity and inadequacy. Useful though these criteria may
be as starting points for description, he argued, they cannot distinguish
exactly between sensations and Gestalten. Take, for example, the case of
ambiguity. On the one hand, sensory presentations sometimes display
ambiguities that can be quite significant. It is possible, for example,
to select a series of gray papers such that they will be judged a = b,
b = c, but a # c, so that the difference in stimulus intensity remains be
low the difference threshold in the first two cases, but not in the third.
If one retains the idea of sensations as unambiguous, this result must be
explained by referring to "unnoticed" differences among the papers. But
this is only another way of resorting to the "unnoticed sensations" exposed
as undemonstrable by Kohler. On the other hand, there are Gestalten that
are quite unambiguous, such as an expanse of blue sky on a cloudless
morning, which, according to Benussi, would be a "produced image" or idea
(Vorstellung) of "spatial order." The same holds for the components of
the ambiguous figures Benussi so often used - lines, angles and the like -
which are themselves Gestalten.^
156 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," pp. 17 ff.
- 346 -
This last statement shows the extent to which Koffka would go to
make a point. According to Wertheimer's own theory, as already presented
in his 1913 lectures, lines and angles embedded in ambiguous figures are
only Gestalten in a restricted sense. Nonetheless, Koffka had demonstrated
the logical difficulties into which Benussi's descriptive langugage could
lead him.
More serious still were the difficulties at the functional level;
for despite Benussis denials, the conception of sensation on which Benus
si 's criteria are based presupposes the constancy hypothesis. Benussi him
self referred to "sense impressions which remain constant and "images [Vor-
stellungen] of figures which can be different from one another." But to
speak in this way, one must assume not only the existence of sensations
but a fixed relationship of these to physical stimuli. Benussi can only mean
this when he refers to "produced images as being "without stimuli" or as
"ideal" or "inexistent objects." "What facts of direct observation can be
offered in support of this? Not a single one," Koffka argued. If such facts
could be offered, then it would mean that both Gestalten and sensations would
be simultaneously accessible to introspection, which Benussi denies. If
constant sensory contents cannot be directly observed, yet are objectively
necessary,they must be "unnoticed" - another example of the way of thinking
excoriated by Kohler. The sensory contents upon which Benussis Gestalt
images are allegedly built, Koffka asserted, are "merely hypostasized." We
have seen that Benussi expressly agreed with Kohlers opposition to the con
stancy hypothesis. Koffka acknowledged this, and declared that "the great
value" of Benussis work is that it "frees" many experiences from their
"bondage to the stimulus." But with the "production" theory and its pre-
- 347 -
suppositions, Benussi takes away what he had just given. The result must
inevitably be "a limitation on research."1^
How Koffka could say that an approach that had yielded so much
experimental work could be "a limitation on research" was unclear. In
essence, he had actually said that Benussi's theory did not conform to
the rules of theory construction he and Kohler had set up in 1913. Re
quired was an alternative model that could incorporate Benussi's results
and also conformed to those rules. The core of that model was Koffkas
dyad of stimulus and experience, here worked out more fully, and its im
plications accepted more openly than before. As we have seen, the termi
nology of perceptual theory had been dominated up to that time by three
overlapping dualisms: "peripheral" and "central," "physiological" and
"psychological," and sensation and judgment. For Helmholtz, all three
of these were equivalent; but this convenient symmetry did not hold for
long. Hering and others had prepared the way for the idea that "central
transformations," as David Katz called them, could be physiological. Some
theorists, like Johannes von Kries, accepted this, but tried to retain
Helmholtz's Kantian vocabulary of sensation and judgment. Karl Buhler
did the same when he referred to "judgments of a lower order," or "ope
rations" intermediate between sensation and intellect, which he said were
responsible for impressions of proportion. Benussi, too, said that his model
called for "central [physiological] processes," but insisted on psychologic
al processes of equal standing.^
157 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," pp. 16-17; cf. p. 81.
158 Buhler, Die Gestaltwahraehmungen, p. 62; Benussi, "Die Gestaltwahrneh-

mungen," p. 292; cf. "Gesetze," p. 401, n. 1.
- 348 -
Koffka radically rearranged these dichotomies by awarding Gestalten
and sensations coequal status over against a two-fold tertium quid, the
interaction of organism and environment. In this conception the word "sti
mulus" no longer referred to a pattern of excitations on the retina, but to
real objects in functional relation to a perceiving organism. "In charac
terizing a real object as a stimulus," Koffka wrote, "we do not refer to
any absolute property of that object, but only to the object's relation to
a living organism .... The same object can be for the same organism at one
time a 'sensory stimulus' and at another a 'Gestalt stimulus,' depending
on the :state of the organism." A hungry fish, for example, snaps at a

159
worm; a satiated one leaves it alone.
The question thus arises whether there are physiological processes
that could be correlates of such stimuli. Koffka boldly answered in the
affirmative, advancing the thesis that "there are real Gestalten." Here
the opposition to the Graz school was nearly complete. When Stefan Witasek
said that "only the stimulus processes themselves are real," he meant: the
processes involved in retinal stimulation, which certainly do not have Ge
stalt character. Thus, when he called "produced" images (Vorstellungen)
"a new, real psychical entity," he meant a qualitatively different sort of
reality, albeit one subject to "thoroughly natural, causal laws in the sub
ject. Koffka reached for a more unified ontology. He recognized that
this assertion had important "epistemological consequences," but said that
this was not the place to pursue them. The issue here was the sort of
159 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," pp. 33-34.
160 Witasek, Grundlinien der Psychologie (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 231-32.
- 349 -
physiological process "in the central nervous system which we may think
of as correlated with Gestalten." Benussi admitted that "produced" images
must have physiological correlates of some kind, hut declined to speculate
about their nature. Koffka introduced Wertheimer's "organized whole-pro-
cesses" as a "first suggestion." With these, he claimed, "this division
of the psychical into constant and variable sections disappears," and
one avoids all notions of Gestalten-as bizarre and unique phe

nomena. We may in fact place the experiencing of Gestalten
squarely beside that of creating Gestalten; to sing or play a melo
dy, dash off a sketch, write, and so forth, are not cases where one
sings or plays tones, or where one draws or writes strokes. The
motor act is an organized whole-process; the many individual move
ments can he understood only as parts of the process which em
braces them, and it is indeed only thus that they attain their
particularity.*61
By equating the process of Gestaltung - forming or shaping - with
its resulting Gestalten, Koffka had assimilated the intentional model of
consciousness into a more comprehensive, functionalist framework. The ob
ject-directed mental "acts" which were the basis of psychology for Brentano
and his students thus took on the same structure as goal-directed acts of
behavior, and both were correlated with "organized whole-processes" in the
brain. Dilthey, we remember, had spoken of the awareness of structured
context as a distinguishing characteristic of "living consciousness," while
James had spoken of the structure of awareness. Koffka's model was a causal
conflation of both. We have an awareness of structure, he seemed to be
saying, because both our awareness of and our activity in the world are
structured in the same way, and because both are rooted in the same structur
ed processes in the brain.
161 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," pp. 36-37. Emphasis mine.
- 350
The similarity of this conception to the leading ideas of American
functional psychology was no accident; Koffka referred to it himself. As
early as 1896, John Dewey had criticized a view of psychology, the "reflex
arc" of stimulus-sensation-motor action-response, and called for a model

162
based on the functional interaction of organism and environment. How
ever, the work Koffka cited was Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory (1903),
later reissued under the title Essays in Experimental Logic. Though he
said he had selected this book "somewhat arbitrarily" for citation, the
choice was apposite. In one of its chapters, the 1903 essay "Thought and
its Subject-Matter," Dewey begins with the distinction between "pure" and
"applied" logic, drawn from Lotze, with which Husserl also operated. In
stead of seeking the experiental roots of "pure" logic, however, as Husserl
purported to do, Dewey took the side of "applied logic." He accepted the
existence of "thought in itself," but maintained that "experimental logic"
should not try to distil', away its experiential aspects. Rather,
Erom this point of view the various types and modes of conceiving,
judgment and inference are treated, not as qualifications of
thought per se or at large, but of reflection engaged in its spe
cific, most economic, effective response to its own particular
occasion; they are adaptations for control of stimuli.
Moreover, these "adaptations" themselves take on a structure dictated
by the situation. "We keep our footing," he wrote, "as we move from one
attitude to another, from one characteristic quality to another, because of
the position occupied in the whole movement by the particular functions
162 John Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology," Psychological

Review, 3 (1896), pp. 357-70.
R eproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.
- 351 -
in which we are engaged." This point of view, he thought, "makes it possible

163
for logical theory to come to terms with psychology."
If we leave aside the biologistic terminology, Dewey's position and
the hopes he had for it appear quite similar to the approach Wertheimer
took in his first 1912 essay. There was, however, one important difference.
Dewey treated psychology as "the natural history of thought." Its method
is "to locate the particular situation in which each structure [of thought
and behavior] has its origin," and to trace "the successive modifications
through which, in response to changing media, it has reached its present con
firmation."**^ Wertheimer offered something like this in his distinction be
tween "natural" and arithmetical number concepts. But he gave no direct in
dication that he thought of the movement from one to the other as an evolu
tionary sequence, although he did see the adaptive significance of the va
rious structures involved. In Koffka's presentation, too, evolutionary
history took on at most a secondary role. His example of a "Gestalt stimu
lus" came from Edinger' neuroanatomical work, already described; but the
behavior he chose was that of a fish, an "old brain" rather then a "new
brain" creature. Thus Koffka was correct when he said that his model was si
milar to, but not identical with, that of American functionalism.
With or without reference to evolutionary history, the implications
of this conceptual shift were far-reaching.*^ At the descriptive level,
163 John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic (1916) (repr. New York, n.d.),
pp. 84, 92, 95. Emphasis mine. Koffka cites the original title in
"Zur Grundlegung," p. 57, n. 1.
164 Dewey, Essays, pp. 93, 95.
165 For the citations in this and the following paragraphs, see Koffka,
"Zur Grundlegung," pp. 57 ff. Emphasis mine.
- 352 -
Koffka maintained, "the typical form of givenness of experiences (both
simultaneous and successive) is not summative, composed of and decompos
able into elements." Instead, he stated, quoting the Grafin von Wartens-
lebens summary of Wertheimers lectures, "experiences are usually orga
nized wholes whose parts are coordinated in a hierarchical system around
a central point. Such structures are in no way less immediate than their
parts." Thus "a pure description of ones experiences cannot be oriented
towards the concept of sensation; its point of departure is, rather,
that of the Gestalt and its properties." The reference to a "hierarchical
system" indicated that Koffka and Wertheimer were talking about much more
here than the conventional acceptance of Herings "seen objects" as the
explanandum in psychological theory. The psychological ontology explicat
ed here encompassed not only individual objects and their structure, but
also the changing relations of objects to one another in the psychological
environment as a whole. Taken seriously as a guide to research, such a
conception would inevitably result in an extraordinary expansion and com
plication of the task of description.
The shift at the level of functional concepts was just as great. Here
sensations are "no longer the typical connection between stimulation and
experience. Just as Gestalten are descriptively no less immediate than
their parts, so are they functionally no less primary." On this showing,
wholes are not constructed in the mind by hypothetical psychological pro
cesses, but are
direct experience-correlates of the stimuli; thus the relation be

tween a whole-presentation and a stimulus pattern is of the kind
which traditional psychology reserved for the relation between sen
sation and stimulus ... one cannot predict merely from a knowledge
of the stimulus object what the experience will be.
- 353 -
Since the state of the entire nervous system is involved in every act of per
ception,
the traditional type of psychological analysis is thus ruled out,

because in shifting one's attention for this purpose one constant-
ly changes the state of the nervous system and hence also of the
experience. There is no proof ... that the *sensations' found
hy analysis were present in the original perception.
Koffka had already come to this strong conclusion in 1914. Here he
could have cited Kohler's research on the "hearing out" of partial tones in
support. Instead he chose to cite a functionalist critique of the sensation
concept published by an American psychologist, Carl Rahn, in 1913. Rahn
asserted, among other things, that
the sensation that by definition 'comes into consciousness only

and always with all its attributes' is a logical construct ....
It is in the conscious reactions now to this problematic situa
tion, now to that ... that the various 'attributes' that con
stitute the sensation come into consciousness.
These words were directed primarily at Titchener's psychology, above all at
Titchener's use of Lockean empiricist principles as determiners of permitted
laboratory language. Koffka's conclusion was blunt: "The unambiguous sen-

167
sation exists only for the psychologist; it is a product of the laboratory."
In his enthusiasm, he did not take sufficient account of the fact that the
phi phenomenon, too, was "an artefact of the laboratory"; it could be experi
enced in pure form only under carefully specified conditions, and even then
only after prolonged stimulation. Though Wertheimer had claimed to be able
to observe it in ordinary life, as well, he acknowledged that this took prac-
166 Carl Rahn, "The Relation of Sensation to Other Categories in Contempo

rary Psychology: A Study in the Psychology of Thinking," Psychological
Monographs, 16 (1913), No. 1, pp. 57, 59.
167 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," p. 60, n. 2.
- 354 -
Physiologically, finally, the new model offered as correlates of
experience
not the individual excitation of one brain area plus associa

tion, but a whole-process with its whole-properties ....There
are no *founding sensations' and in addition to these an acces
sory 'Gestalt'-excitation, but rather the entire process is signi
ficantly different according to whether we experience Gestalten
or sensations.
Thus Wertheimer's theory was no mere "short-circuit analogy," as Benussi had
claimed, but "a recentering of the entire question." Benussi had failed
to grasp the connection between Kenkel's research and Wertheimer's, accord
ing to Koffka,because he had not understood the thrust of Wertheimer's theo
ry. It was not a question of analogies, but of explaining seen motion
as a product of functional interaction between physical stimuli and physio
logical processes. That this should seem possible or worth attempting at
all presupposed the altered conceptual structure that Koffka had now made *
explicit.
This "recentering" of the problem also implied the radical redefini
tion of other important concepts. The task (Aufgabe) or attention, for
example, became "nothing other than a subjective condition of experience,"
or, from a physiological point of view, "an alteration of the total state of
169
the central organ." Further, the conventional classification scheme accord
ing to which some phenomena, such as contrast, were attributed to "peripher
al" and others, such as most illusions, to "central" factors would have to
168 Wertheimer, "Motion," p. 1066; "Bewegung," p. 68.
169 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," p. 49.
- 355 -
be given up. Koffka cited an experiment from one of Wertheimer* s lectures
to show that contrast could also he centrally conditioned. A gray ring is
exhibited on a background half green, half red. Looked at naively, the
ring appears to be homogenously gray. When an object, such as a narrow strip
of paper or a needle, is placed on the ring at the line dividing the two
halves of the figure, the half on the "red'* side suddenly appears greenish,
and the half on the "green" side reddish. Put simply, under these conditions,
two half-rings looked different from one whole ring, even though the sensations
being received were the same.
Looking to the future, Koffka claimed that this perspective offered "a
series of opportunities" for research, the results of which "could also
be important for the theory of knowledge." Instead of Benussi*s single
process of "production" on the basis of "unambiguous" sensations, perception
would be "determined by numerous variables, the relations among which must
first be sought. ... There is no longer any arbitrariness [Beliebigkeit]
as fact, but only as the starting point for the discovery of new law," such
as the principles of "unity formation," the Gestalt laws already announced
by Wertheimer. At the level of theory, then, Koffka offered an end to "the
division in the psychical"; at the level of practice, he offered the reopen
ing of nearly the entire field to research. In addition, he presented the
inviting prospect of implications for the theory of knowledge. We have seen
how strongly aware Koffka was of the problematic situation of experimenting
170 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," pp. 41, 20-21. Cf. the later account in
Principles, pp. 134 ff. Benussi later pointed out that this experiment
had originally been done by a student of Wundts years before. See n.
175, below.
- 356 -
psychologists like himself in the German universities. Here was a redefi
nition of perceptual theory that promised to give experimenting psycholo
gists extensive and important work to do and also assured them, at least
potentially, of a relevant professional identity.
Here, however, Koffka confined himself primarily to the practical
consequences of the shift for scientific psychology. He maintained that
this alternative conception makes "the situation simple and comprehensible
for the conduct of research," while "with the philosophy of'objects.[sictl .this
clear state of affairs becomes ... complicated and confused."^Such an \
assertion seemed to contradict Kohler's earlier admission that the rejection
of the constancy hypothesis would make matters more complicated at first.
Surely the notion that two successive experiences of red may not be "the
same" could not have provided much comfort in this regard . The contradiction
disappears when we focus on the phrase "conduct of research." Koffka was
essentially saying that it is easier to gather experimental data if we ac
cept the "evidence of determinative description" provided by trained observers.
However, it was not clear how Koffka's actual regulation of observer behavior
- instructions to fixate this point or that region of a piece of paper -
was any simpler than Benussis instruction to "focus on" an entire figure.
In fact, that was the procedural reform that Kohler, Gelb and Wertheimer had
forced Schumann to accept in the Frankfurt experiments already described.
Benussi, too, accepted the evidence of his subjects' "determinative descrip
tion," or self-observation. The real divergence was theoretical, not practic
al.
What Koffka had done was to substitute for the intentional model one
- 357 -
that reduced the ontological multiplicity demanded by Meinong by eliminating
the middle term, the "production process. Meinong sought a theory of know
ledge that would do justice to both the facts of perception and the demands
of valid reason. Koffka's Gestalt immanent ism stressed the former at the
expense of the latter. In his model, not only the distinction of sensation
and Gestalt, but that of content and object disappears. All objects, at
least all objects of perception, are in principle real. Such a view over
looked the fictitious entities, the nonreal "objects'* that had stimulated
the development of Meinongs' theory. These were of no interest to the
psychology of perception, though they were important for epistemology.
Koffka later accepted the consequences of this distinction and separated
the issue of the psychological reality of perceived objects from that
of their reality in the external world. Here, however, he deliberately
avoided the issue. The nature of the promised "implications for the theo
ry of knowledge" thus remained unclear". :So did the implications of his
model for other topics of interest to philosophers, such as thought and lan
guage.
Yet Koffka could not suppress entirely the larger hopes he held out
for his view. Citing an assertion by the zoologist Siegfried Becher that
form (Gestalt) is a characteristic of "the activity of living substance"
in general, he claimed that with the revised conception of the stimulus
and the concomitant equation of formed action and its formed object,
172
"we have built a bridge to the living [zum Lebendigen]" from psychology.
For the philosopher Erich Becher, Siegfried Becher's brother, such state-
- 358 -
merits about "living substance" were support for psychovitalism. For
Koffka, however, the crossing of this bridge depended upon the existence
of "real" - physical or physiological - Gestalten, the existence of which
was hypothetical, to say the least. At this point, the thesis was more
a deduction from Koffka's Machian ideal of unified science than a con
clusion from empirical evidence. Koffka was therefore quite cautious in
presenting it. He realized that "even if there were no physical Gestalten,
there might nevertheless be stimuli for Gestalt presentations. Every
psychologist knows that the number of variable elements of an air vi
bration does not tell us the number of attributes a tone sensation
will have." For the purposes of systematic psychology, "the new view of
the fundamental relation of stimulus and experience is essential"; this

173
could be maintained even if physical Gestalten do not exist. This
argument was similar to the one Fechner used in his foundation of psycho
physics. Though the real hope of both men was to achieve an empirically
supported, monistic world-view, the possibility of retreat to the high
ground of ametaphysical method was prepared in advance.
In the end, Koffka had shown mainly that Benussi *s theory had the
same hypothetical status as Wertheimer's. In terms of the logic of ex
planation, Wertheimer's physiological "whole processes" are equivalent to
Benussi's "production" process, in that neither is, or can be, given in
experience, but must be concluded from it. Thus the issue came down to the
way in which such conclusions might permissibly be drawn an issue of accept
able theory construction. Koffka's criticism was not that Benussi*s theory
173 Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung," pp. 35-36, 40 n. 1; cf. pp. 24, 59.
- 359 -
led to false predictions, but that its construction was faulty, in that
it presupposed a relation of stimulus to sensation which in turn rested
upon the analytic model it claimed to overcome. However, despite this
emphasis upon the requirements of logic and science, Koffka clearly
hoped for more. His evocation of the "Gestalt stimulus, the conflation
of form and function and the thesis of "real Gestalten" lent his frame
work an ontological dimension it had not explicitly had before. Koffka
was right to suppose that these were the most consistent conclusions he could
draw from Wertheimer's exemplar; but these ideas posed difficult questions
of their own, such as the relation of "seen objects" to their physiological
correlates and to real objects. These were resolved here only by the com
promise formula that "real Gestalten" may or may not exist. Theuneasiness
inherent in such a position was relieved only later.
Benussi's reaction showed that Koffka's paper by no means settled
the matter immediately. In the full published version of his research
on touch, sent to the Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie in September, 1915,
but not published until 1917, Benussi expressed skepticism about the existence
of the phi phenomenon, pointing among other things to the small number of
subjects in Wertheimer's experiment. In his own research he used twenty-se
ven subjects, and got results supporting an "identification" theory. In
vision, he said, it may be possible to speak of movement without an object,
but here we have a genuinely paradoxical phenomenon - "the intuited move
ment of something which is in no way experienced as something moving [ein

174
sich Bewegendes]." Benussi received Koffka's polemic while reading
174 Benussi, "Versuche zur Analyse taktil erweckter Scheinbewegungen,"

Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 36 (1917), pp. 59-135, here p. 68
& 68, n. 1; cf. pp. 74, 131.
- 360 -
the proofs of this article, and added a number of remarks in response.
He conceded Koffka*s point about contrast, saying it was a criticism he
had made of his own theory for some time. But the key point was Koffka*s
different conception of the stimulus, and Benussi grasped this immediately.
"Perhaps he is right," he wrote; the facts would decide.
Apparently Benussi was prevented from answering Koffka at greater
length by the war. He did not remain in Graz after 1919, but went to Pa
dua, where he established a tradition of research on problems of Gestalt
perception that continues t o d a y . W i t h the premature death of Witasek
in 1915, Benussi *s departure and Meinong*s death in 1921, the Graz school
came to an end. Meinongs last doctoral student, Fritz Heider, later work
ed for a time with the Gestalt theorists and developed an independent but
related line of thinking. Though he never publicly accepted Gestalt theo
ry, Benussi*s respect for the facts earned him the respect of the Gestalt
theorists. Heider reports that Benussi received a cordial reception when
he visited Kohler's institute in Berlin in the mid1 9 2 0 s . I t should
be noted, however, that the Berlin Gestalt psychologists rarely cited Be
nussi *s work in their publications after 1920.
175 Benussi, "Versuche," pp. 61-62, n. 1.
176 See, e.g., Gaetano Kanisza, Organization in Vision; Essays on Gestalt

Perception (New York, 1979).
177 Fritz Heider, "Gestalt Theory: Early History and Reminiscences,"

(cited in part two, n. 275), esp. pp. 66, 69. Cf. Lindenfeld, The
Transformation of Positivism (cited in part two, n. 3), pp. 236-
37.
- 361 -
e. "The Method of Natural Science" Clarified, Defended and Applied
The Gestalt theorists' relations with Paul Linke were rather dif
ferent. Linke presented additional research on stroboscopic effects at
the 1912 congress of the Society for Experimental Psychology. Some of
his conclusions overlapped with Wertheimer's, in particular his insistence
that central factors were responsible. Wertheimer had treated his earlier
work thoroughly and on the whole moderately, saying only that his own re
sults tended to speak against Linke's "identification" theory. Koffka
and Kenkel, however, did not cite Lihke at all. Benussi chided them for
this in his review. Linke himself criticized the "friendly omission" more
openly in a brief note written in response to Koffkas article in Die
Geisteswissenschaften. Koffka's account of Wertheimer's procedure in that
article, he said, "reads like a report of my experiments." Koffka's response
was firm, nearly arrogant in tone. He thought it was obvious why he and
Kenkel had ignored Linke's work, but if Linke wished to know, he would tell
him: Kenkel had not mentioned it because it was about beta, not alpha
movement; and Koffka had left him out of his article because his theory had
178
been refuted by Wertheimer.
Linke, however, did not admit defeat. Wertheimer's theory of the
"ideal perception of movement," as he called it, stands "only half on modern
178 Linke, "Demonstration eines von der Firma Carl Zeiss zum Nachweise
meiner Theorie der 'stroboskopischen Tauschungen' angefertigten Ki-
nematographen," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht ... 1912, pp. 196
200, esp. p. 198. Linke, "Das paradoxe Bewegungsphanomen und die
'neue' Wahmehmungslehre,' Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 33
(1915), pp. 261-65, here p. 261, n. 1; Koffka, "Zur Grundlegung,"
p. 89.
- 362 -
ground." Because it is "completely unnecessarily oriented to the physio
logical concept of the stimulus," it "remains a compromise between the old
physiological views and modem [i.e., psychological] ideas." To show what
he meant, he offered an example which he thought was sufficient to refute
Wertheimers theory. When a white rectangle and a larger white oval are
projected stroboscopically on a black background, the former is seen as
expanding into the latter and returning, under optimal conditions. This
much is consistent with Wertheimer's theory. But when the oval is increased
in size so that it includes the rectangle, there is no impression of mo
tion, despite the presence of two "stimuli." If, however, a black rectangle
is placed inside the larger oval, movement is again seen; the white rec
tangle "changes into" the black one, accompanied by a large brightness shift
as it moves into the latters position. Although a black rectangle against
a black background cannot be a "stimulus" in physiological terms, it none
theless produces movement. Linke named this "the 'paradoxical' movement
phenomenon," because it "exists, so to speak, in spite of the actual stimu
lus relations." We are dealing here, Linke insisted, not with stimuli
or sensations but with "objects" (Gegenstande) that are "immediately given
as they appear to us and as soon as we have them before us - no matter
what special physical or physiological stimuli produced them." If Werthei
mer admits this, Linke claimed, "then he stands on my ground .... The ex
perience of unified motion is connected with the succession of two visually

179
given 'objects,'" not two physiological "stimuli."
This use of the word "object" indicates the mixture of psychology
179 Linke, "Das paradoxe Bewegungsphanomen," pp. 263-64.
- 363 -
and epistemology involved in Linke's position. However, Linke did not mean
Meinong's fictive or "ideal" objects, but psychological ones. He explained
more fully what he meant by this term in the full-length treatment of
perceptual theory he published in 1918. Here he announced that his in
tention was to do nothing less than found the human studies as securely as
the natural sciences by extending the intentional model into the phenomenal
sphere. He based this extension on a distinction between act and object,
not content and object. "Objects"" are mental, but need not be experienced.
The number three and a tree, for example, "are and remain completely 'three'
and 'tree' with all their other characteristics," whether they are perceived
or not; their being perceived is merely an additional, albeit determinative
attribute. Thus the apprehension of any object meant the "coapprehension,"
at least potentially, of all the qualities that determine that object
according to the laws of its essence. Psychical experience is the act,
not the object; color and light, for example, are perceived, but are not
themselves facts of consciousness. The statement that we perceive x or j
can thus be extended to the "essential laws" and characteristics of these
x or , and to those of any x or jr so defined. Therefore, Lihke asserted,
"I am capable of making correct statements about a psychical fact, with
out proceeding from its observation or other empirical issues, on the
basis of a norm external to the psychical." It was on this basis that he
believed he could establish psychology as a generally valid field of know
ledge. The affinities of this approach to that of Husserl were strong enough
to allow the publication of an early version of the book's thesis in Husserl's

180
"Yearbook for Phenomenological Research."
180 Linke, Die Grundfragen der Wahmehmungstheorie (Munich, 1981), pp. 12,
- 364 -
According to this view, the phi phenomenon is indeed a paradox;
for movement without an object is nonsensical. Yet we "have" movement
under certain conditions. Lihke*s explanation for this was that movement
was "merely imagined" (blofi vorgestellt) , in the same sense that the pat
tern of dots at the right is "seen"
as a triangle. One "actually" per
ceives a collection of points in a

certain arrangement, but is "psychical-
ly compelled" (genotigt) to see a
triangle,the essence of which is three
lines. What is involved here, accord- ^

* Figure 11: Dot triangle
ing to Linke, is not the construction
of Gestalten from unordered sensations; for "everything is formed [Gestal-
tet]." Instead, we have "an imaginative interpretation of the perceptual
ly given Gestalten in this particular way." This theory of "psychical
mediation," Lihke claimed, explains why motion is perceived when two ob
jects are projected at rest. Motion is imagined as "states" of an "object"

181
moving between two "poles'* or "frames."
Koffka was asked to review Linke* s book for the Zeitschrift fur an-
gewandte Psychologie, in order to give "Wertheimers standpoint," as he
called it, another chance to be heard. Predictably, he was completely
17, 40, 4. For a brief discussion of Linkes relation to phenomenolo

gy, see Herbert Spiegelberg, Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry
(cited in part two, n. 39 ), pp. 150-51.
181 Linke, Grundfragen, pp. 292, 248 ff., 259 ff., 309-10.
- 365 -
opposed to Linke*s "a priori psychology," the view that psychological state
ments could be made on the basis of extra-psychological "norms." He con
sidered the principle "that statements about psychical events [Psychisches]
can be made only on the basis of observations on the psychical" to be
"the great achievement of modern psychology." He acknowledged that Linke
had raised "a central problem," the relation between a given object and
the real object with all of its characteristics; however, his "object"
concept only places them on the same plane, and thus "disguises" the pro
blem again. Here Koffka stated the rules of Gestalt theorys procedure
and its epistemological implications with a clarity - not to say bluntness
- unknown up to that time. What is given "for us" is
not a different object of the perceived, but a different given

ness [Gegebenheit], like the perception of a forest by an artist
and a forester ... the artist sees the forest differently from
the forester, as another forest. What remains identical is merely
that which natural science can determine, the physical state of
affairs capable of being a stimulus ....[Thus] the 'object* is
no longer the point of rest in the flux of appearances, and if
we seek such a place, then we must have recourse to that which
can be determined by the method of natural science .. ..^2
With these words psychological realism and epistemological realism
have parted company entirely. However, it was no accident that Koffka
used the word "forest," and not "trees" in his example. He made it clear
that Gestalt theorys version of phenomenalism did not prescribe a world
of undifferentiated sensations; nor did it take the opposite tack, as Linke
did when he advocated "panmorphism." Wertheimer, he wrote, had intended
to say much more than this:
182 Koffka, review of Linke, Zeitschrift fur angewandte Psychologie, 16

(1920), pp. 102-17, esp. pp. 102, 111-12. Emphasis mine.
- 366 -
The proposition [that] everything is formed [gestaltet] elimi

nates everything that Wertheimer's principle had brought. The
unformed, chaotic exists, there is also more or less thorough
ly formed [durchgestaltetes] and there are relatively indepen
dent part-wholes which more or less lack outstanding [pragnan-
ten] whole-qualities. I meant this when I characterized sen
sations as products of decay [Zerfallsprodukte]. There are
also mere and-sums [Und-summen] in the given. One may not view
these [the points in Linke's triangle example] as stimulus-bound
sensations, or as 'the actually perceived'; rather, in the same
environment one can have one or the other kind of connection or
both in succession without psychical intervention in the strict
sense of a causal psychical event.
This was the clearest statement yet of what Wertheimer had meant -when he
referred in his 1913 lectures to a "hierarchy" of the given; its content

183
differs little from the version Wertheimer himself subsequently published.
Given such completely different conceptions of experience, Koffka
wrote, "one will not be surprised if we declare most of that [which Lihke
calls experience] to be mere construction which submits to no observation."
This is particularly true of the processes hypostasized in Linke's notion
of "psychical mediation." Despite its differences from Benussi's theory,
Linkes view still operates "with the old concepts of perception and imagin
ation, of the primarily given and added-to, of elements and their combi
nation"; it, too, rests in the final analysis upon the constancy hypothe
sis. This is particularly clear in Linke's treatment of motion, Koffka
claimed. He persists in characterizing dual and single part-motion, or
the motion of single objects, as "errors" when he subjects observe them;
"Linke should explain such results, rather than wanting to deny repeatedly
183 Koffka, review of Linke, p. 113. Cf. Wertheimer, "TJntersuchungen

zur Lehre von der Gestalt, I. Prinzipielle Bemerkungen," Psychologi-
sche Porschung, 1 (1922), pp. 47-58, here pp. 52-53.
- 367 -
confirmed, clean results of observation." Ironically, Koffka did little
to explain the "paradoxical" phenomenon Lihke had presented to refute
Wertheimer's theory of apparent motion. Instead he dismissed it vaguely
in a sentence as an effect of contour.
The theoretical differences, however, were clear enough, and so were
their implications for the status of psychology:
since psychological analysis in.the old sense is impossible, pure

ly psychological theory is also impossible. If one wishes to
describe the entire situation understandably, then the stimuli
must be included; if one wishes to explain, then one must reach
over into the realm of physiology.*85
Linke had set for himself the task of constructing a psychology that could
claim to have some form of transcendental validity, in much the same way
that Husserl had hoped to establish philosophy as a "rigorous science."
For Koffka, such projects were doomed to failure by definition. The only
way to connect the phenomenal world with the external world was "the method
of natural science."
Given such a position, it was only natural that Koffka's .next at
tempts to work out the systematic implications of his version of Gestalt
theory were addressed to an audience of natural scientists. In a two-part
series in the journal Die Naturwissenschaften, he applied Gestalt theory
to the problems of the difference threshold and the role of experience in
perception. The aims of the presentation were clear at the outset: "to
introduce the physicist to current psychological research," and to show that
"psychology works with natural-scientific methods." He began with precisely
184 Koffka, review of Lihke, pp. 114-16.
185 Koffka, review of Linke, p. 117.
- 368 -
the step described in part two, above, as the beginning of the disciplinary
differentiation of experimental psychology from physiology and physics -
the separation of the difference from the absolute threshold. Koffka char
acterized the fact that the two have been explained differently as "the
main weakness" of experimental psychology from the physicist's viewpoint.
He then presented a historical and systematic review of theoretical develop
ments in the field up to that time, carefully arranged to bring out the signi
ficance of Wertheimers theory as an important contribution, if not the de-

186
cisive step toward overcoming this apparent inconsistency.
Koffka began with an account of Stumpf's theory, especially the role
of the "noticing" function. Stumpf recognized that there is no strict one-
to-one correspondence of stimulus and sensation, Koffka noted; but he ne
vertheless postulated a parallelism of the two series, while admitting
that there were cases in which this did not hold. Given a series of sti
muli A<B, B<C, A < C, we sometimes obtain the sensations aj = bj, b2 = C2 ,
but a^ <Cg. If he assumes that a^ = a^, bj = b2 and c^ = c^ - that is,
the constancy hypothesis - then Stumpf must say that aj <bj and b2 <C 2 but
the difference is not "noticed." Koffka admitted that this position "is
not seriously held by any researcher, and nowhere actually expressed" as
such; but he claimed nonetheless, as Kohler had, that it plays "a funda
mental role in the interpretation of results." It is thissupposition that
lies behind Stumpfs contention that we can delude ourselves about oursen-
186 Koffka, "Probleme der experimentellen Psychologie, I. Die Unter-

schiedsschwelle," Die Naturwissenschaften, 5 (1917), pp. 1-5, 23-28,
here pp. 1, 3.
- 369 -
sations. He lets experiment two "decide" over experiment one, "because
here 'better* conditions of observation exist." But this construction is
possible only if one presupposes that sensation a is a function of the
stimulus only. Otherwise, "we need only recognize that we can delude our-
187
selves about the difference of two stimuli, but not that of two sensations."
G.E. Muller had discovered even greater difficulties with the theory,
Koffka continued. Under certain conditions, three repetitions of the sti
mulus pair A and B produced three different judgments: a <b, a = b and a >b.
The first two of these are explicable on Stumpf *s theory, but not the third,
false judgment. Miller attempted to solve this problem by modifying the
constancy hypothesis to account for the influence of other factors, such
as the direction of attention. Tet he retained at first the idea of see
ing each sensation for itself, independent of the others. With the intro
duction of "perserveration tendencies," this, too, was modified; for now
each stimulus was no longer indifferent to its predecessors. However,
Koffka claimed, it was Hans Cornelius who actually overthrew the idea of
unnoticed sensations, on the grounds that they are not present in experience.
Ebbinghaus added the idea that a sufficient difference in sensation was
required to produce impressions of difference. However, Koffka stated,
Ebbinghaus could not explain the difference threshold for simultaneous sti
muli, and Cornelius could not specify the role of attention. Both theories
had the important advantage of being able to explain the absolute and dif
ference thresholds in the same way, but this advance remained "merely theo
retical" until Wertheimer demonstrated experimentally the interaction of
187 Koffka, "Unterschiedschwelle," p. 3.
- 370 -
two stimuli without "psychical mediation." Now it was possible to say,
Koffka claimed, that "we should not speak of many individual stimuli at
all, hut of a single total stimulus and correspondingly not of many single
sensations hut of one structured total experience, which could he called
a Gestalt experience." Ebbinghaus had been "on the way" to Wertheimers
view, hut had only discussed the influence of the first on the second sti
mulus; Wertheimer's interactionist explanation was "much more comprehen-

. ,,188
sive.
According to this conception, then, the reason we sometimes have the
sensations a = b^, and a^< c^ in. response to the stimuli A<B,
B < C and A < C is that in certain circumstances "two slightly different sti
muli effect as a stimulus complex a total experience with two similar
parts - an adaption [Angleichungj occurs." In other circumstances, there
is a "separation" or "withdrawal" (Abhebung). When this happens, according
to Wertheimer's law of Fragnanz, the effect is strong; and the difference
is perceived. Thus, when such stimulus complexes are given, Wertheimer's
"complex laws" would be in effect. In the case of single stimuli, nothing
forces us to assume the constancy hypothesis, and both experimental and
biological facts speak against it; it would be "biologically harmful" to
have a different sensation for every stimulus. There are, in general,
"relatively few different sensations," Koffka asserted. The facts of the
difference threshold tell us more about the fineness of the discriminations
we can make under certain conditions than about the number of sensations
we actually have. This ought to be clear in any case; for in the real world,
188 Koffka, "Unterschiedschwelle," esp. p. 24.
- 371 -
as opposed to the laboratory, "exactly the same stimulus never returns a
second time." Thus, whereas the older psychology emphasized the determining
influence of the stimuli, the new theory emphasizes "the independent acti
vity [Eigentatigkeit] of the nervous apparatus".; but the exact nature of

189
its role is "a question for natural science" to decide.
Koffka admitted that this interpretation was not yet "compelling."
"The fact of adaptation [Angleichung] alone cannot decide anything about"
the constancy hypothesis, and "we know nothing at all as yet about the
nervous apparatus that intervenes between stimulus and sensation." He
hoped that Wertheimer's impending publication would deal with specific
problems, such as the false judgments pointed out by Miller. As for the
function of the nervous apparatus, this "should be explained by our psycho-

190
logical experiments." Here, at the very latest, Koffka may well have
lost the physiologists in his readership; and he recognized that notions
likd "total stimulus" and "total experience" were likely to seem strange to
physicists. The first part of Koffka's skilful attempt to use historical
reconstruction as a justification strategy may have succeeded. Ee had offer
ed a sophisticated account of one of the central issues in psychophysical
research, and explained the advantages and disadvantages of the various at
tempts that had been made to solve it in terms understandable to natural
scientists. Whether he was successful in his bold effort to present Wert
heimer's still unfinished theory as the long-awaited solution was, however,
another matter.
189 Koffka, "Unterschiedschwelle," esp. pp. 25-26, 27.
190 Koffka, "Unterschiedschwelle," p. 24.
- 372 -
In the second installment of the series, Koffka turned to the pro
blems of memory and experience; for, as he put it, "our new theory of
perception cannot claim general validity until a position is taken on
these vital issues." Customarily, he wrote, experience is equated with
association. Helmholtz, Hill and Bain had all recognized the theoretical
problem here - the fact that reproductions and perceptions are all experienc
ed with the same immediacy as sensations. Wundt's explanation for this
was his "assimilation" theory. The phenomena of motion apparently fit this
notion exactly, Koffka admitted; the motion picture projector seems to
be "truly an apparatus for the production of assimilations." However,
Wertheimer's work and that of his own students disproved this by showing
that motion phenomena are not due to the assimilation of present with im
mediately preceding experiences, but are immediate effects of "total pro-

..191
cesses.
What do these results have to say about the problems of experience
and memory? The important distinction here, Koffka said, was not between
sensations and Gestalten, but between that which is "structurally determin
ed" in experience and that which has been acquired by practice. In Wert
heimer's work, he noted, "the influence of experience is clear: if one had
not offered two stimulus objects under the conditions for optimal motion
so often before, a single stimulus would not now call up the impression of
motion." This effect is explained by the fact that in such situations,"dis
positions" are fixed for "similar processes" in the brain, "so that these
appear when the stimulus situation alone would have produced others." How-
191 Koffka, "Probleme der experimentellen Psychologie, II. Uber den Ein-
fluB der Erfahrung auf die Wahmehmung," Die Naturwissenschaften, 7
(1919), pp. 597-605, esp. pp. 598 ff.
- 373 -
ever, it is not the case that earlier experiences are revived separately
and then fuse with those connected with the stimulus; "rather, a certain
specific total process arises on the basis of the stimuli and the old
dispositions." Koffka recognized that this was not yet a solution, but
only raised "a burning task for psychology": to determine the workings
of these "dispositions," and thus to explain the influence of experience

192
on perception in general. He offered here only an indication of the
direction that a possible solution might take.
"Experience as the basis of memory," he wrote, "is not purely pas
sive behavior. It is important that something specific happens; already
with the first perception an achievement is required of the organism."
This achievement then leaves a disposition, or trace, so that the.organism
reacts later in the manner demanded by the original situation, even when
the new situation requires a different response. Thus, according to this
theory "we have no reason to suppose" that "only by the repetition of the
same perception something new is achieved - a supposition that was con
tained in original empirism. Nativism, on the other hand,
made the mistake of interpreting the 'spatial determinants' of

sensation according to the model of quality and intensity ...
in other words, according to the old sensation concept. We,
however, are on the opposite road. We strive to understand that
which was earlier called sensation from the Gestalt point of
view. But then the opposition between nativism and empirism ...
collapses. Everywhere we are dealing with flexible entities, and
from the unification of two divided fields [i.e., perception and
memory] which nativism as well could not join, a powerful ple
nitude of phenomena for research arises.193
192 Koffka, "EinfluB der Erfahrung," p. 604.
193 Koffka, "EinfluB der Erfahrung," pp. 604-05. Emphasis mine.
- 374 -
At this point Koffka's assertion could be little more than a procla
mation, a deduction from his revised conception of the stimulus-experience
relationship. To say that the organism must achieve something even with the
first perception sounded like nativism, for such statements presupposed the
existence of inherited anatomical structures that made such achievements pos
sible. On the other hand, the language of "dispositions" sounded like a
modified form of empiricism. The fact was that Koffka lacked the conceptual
foundation he needed to proceed further along this route. Assertions like
these presupposed the priority of another realm over both anatomy and psycho
logy, in which the principles of "structure" or "dynamics" resided. Koffka
had referred to that realm when he advanced the thesis that "there are real
Gestalten," but he had pulled back from the implications of that statement
almost as soon as he had made it. The conceptual foundation he required
was being provided by Wolfgang Kohler at just this time. However, Kohler
came to that point by a rather different route.
4. Insights and Confirmations: KShler on Tenerife
Wolfgang Kohler followed and contributed to these developments
from the island of Tenerife, to which he traveled as the second director of
the anthropoid research station of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in De
cember, 1913. The idea for the station originally came from Max Rothmann,
a Berlin physician, in 1912. After attempting to study the motor pathways
of monkeys by doing surgery on their brains, Rothmann decided that a "psycho
logical basis" of observation was necessary before such investigations could
- 375 -
be meaningfully carried out. The hope was to compare the behavior of various
anthropoid species, including the gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee and gibbon,
with respect to gesture, comprehension of language, perception of color, and
other issues, in order to determine their respective places on the development- .
al scale on the way to man. Tenerife seemed to be an appropriate location for
such studies, because the environment there was less foreign to the anthropoids'
original habitat than European zoos, but climatically and geographically more
194
accessible to Europeans than the jungles of Cameroon.
a. The Institutional Setting
Like many scientific enterprises of the period, the establishment of
the station was made possible by a combination of private and state support.
Financing came initially from the Selenka and Plaut foundations in Munich,
and facilitative assistance, in the form of a consignment of chimpanzees, from
the German colonial government in Cameroon. However, the decisive step to
ward long-term financial security came with the help of the newly-founded
Albert Samson Foundation of the Prussian Academy. Samson, a banker interested
in science, had heard the anatomy lectures of Wilhelm Waldeyer in Berlin.
When he decided to leave the largest portion of his estate to science -
500,000 marks to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich and over 1,000,000
marks to the Prussian Academy - he asked Waldeyer to oversee the affairs of
194 For an account of the motives behind the establishment of the station,
see Max Bothmann & Eugen Teuber, "Aus der Anthropoidenstation auf Te-
neriffa, I. Ziele und Aufgaben der Station," Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss.
Akad. der Wiss., phys.-math. Kl., 1915, No. 2, esp. pp. 3-5.
- 376 -
the Prussian side of the foundation. To aid him in this, Waldeyer assembl
ed a distinguished board of Academy members, including Max Planck and Carl
Stumpf. The foundations purpose, according to its official statute, was
to support inquiry into "the natural, biological bases of individual and
social morality in the fields of ethnography, anatomy, physiology, and experi
mental psychology. Waldeyer applied this to the anthropoid station by say
ing that its goal was "to examine the issue whether living conditions and
structures are observable in the animal world which go beyond the simple life
of instinct and approach the level of ethical and moral expression in human
195
life." Stumpfs PhonogranmrAcchiv was another logical beneficiary; as
already reported in part one, above, it received an annual grant of 7,000
marks from 1912 onward. Of the approximately 30,000 marks that were available
from the income of the foundation in 1914, more than half went for these two
projects. Excluding the directors, salary, the operating expenses set aside
for the anthropoid station in its second year of operation amounted to
5,000 marks, slightly more than the budget of Stumpfs psychological insti-
196
tute at the time.
The station was the first of its kind, and this apparently evoked a
certain amount of national pride. When the American animal psychologist Robert
195 Albert Samson Stiftung, Statut vom 19. Juli 1905/7 (sic), September
1914, in Akademie-Archiv der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Berlin: (DDR) , II: XIII , Bnd. 6 , Bl. 5 ff. Hereafter cited as Aka
demie-Archiv. Cf. Wilhelm Waldeyer, "Ansprache, Sitzungsber. der
konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., 1914, 1, pp. 77-84, on p. 83.
196 Por the budgetary figures, see the reports in Sitzungsberichte, 1915--
1, p. 129; 1916, 1, pp. 162-63. See also Akademie-Archiv, II: XIII,
Bnd. 13, Bl. 126-28.
- 377 -
M. Yerkes inquired about the station and mentioned his plan to establish one
in the United States, Rothmaim asked him to consider "whether two such insti
tutes should be equipped or whether one should concentrate the work in the
one existing station." Writing from the "German Anthropoid Research Station,"
Eugen Teuber, the station's first director, did not try to dissuade Yerkes.
However, as he reported to Waldeyer, he emphasized that the station was "no
longer planned" but in full operation, so that "there can be no dolit about
our priority in this area and the Americans must reckon with our results when
. . ,,197
they begin.
The first year of the station's operation was devoted mainly to general
observations of the chimpanzees' social and other behavior. Among these
observations were "intelligent achievements" (Intelligenzleistungen) by the
brightest animal, a young male named Sultan, who quickly learned to open
the doors of the compound by putting a key in the lock, and used sticks as
tools to reach distant food. The stage was now set, Teuber reported, for
"more exact scientific investigation" of the sensory functions and intelli
gent achievements of individual animals. Wolfgang Kohler was chosen to succeed

198
Teuber specifically for this purpose, on Stumpf's recommendation. Kohler
proved to be an effective negotiator. He pointed out to Waldeyer that since
197 Rothmann to Yerkes, n.d., Yerkes to Rothmann, 20 November ;1913, Robert

M. Yerkes papers, Yale Medical Library, New Haven, Ct., folder 29.
Teuber to Waldeyer, Akademie-Archiv, II: XIII , Bnd. .13, Bl. 75-76;
cf. Teuber to Yerkes, 30 November 1913, and Ylrkes to Teuber, 29 Decem
ber 1913, Yerkes papers, folder 29.
198 Rothmann & Teuber, "Ziele und Aufgaben," esp. pp. 15-16, 18. Waldeyer
states that Kohler was appointed on Stumpf's recommendation in "Anspra-
che," p. 84.
- 378 -
he was "without independent means" and thus "completely dependent on the acade
mic career" for his existence, departure from Germany was a risk for which he
should be adequately compensated. He requested and received an annual salary
of 6,500 marks, double that of his predecessor, who had not yet obtained the
doctorate, and more than six times his assistants salary in Frankfurt. In
addition, he obtained other benefits, such as payment of the rent and furnish
ings of the house attached to the station and of travel expenses for himself
and his wife. The foundation also paid the salary of Kohlers substitute in
Frankfurt, in order to instire that his assistantship would be held for him. 199
For a young scientist of twenty-six, this was truly an advantageous start,
especially compared with the normal situation of young academics in Germany at
that time.
Kohler immediately showed his mettle as both an enthusiastic investiga
tor and a conscientious administrator. Shortly after his arrival, for example,
he wrote an extensive report to justify the purchase of an additional chimpanzee
in his absence, offering to pay for it himself. When the animal died shortly
thereafter, he wrote an equally detailed account of its symptoms and treatment,
blaming himself for not having examined the animal more closely before pur
chase. Waldeyer quickly reassured him: "no one could make the slightest accu
sation against you. I must even recognize that you have done everything pos
sible to save the animal and prevent further misfortune." He urged Kohler to
"spare no expense" on the construction of better facilities, for "the station
199 Kohler to Waldeyer, 29 August 1913, and the contract between Kohler and
the Samson Foundation, dated 20 December 1913, both in Akademie-Archiv,
II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13, Bl. 56, 90. For the payment of the salary of Kohlers
substitute in Frankfurt, see Akademie-Archiv, II: XIII2, Bnd. 13, Bl. 237,
246.
- 379 -
is my primary concern." In addition, he offered to extend Kohler's appoint-

200
ment until April of 1915 and "perhaps still further." Waldeyer had reason
to be pleased with his young appointee; for by the time he wrote these letters,
in the spring of 1914, he had already received word of the remarkable results
Kohler had obtained with simple "intelligence tests" on the apes. These re
sults have since become classical in the history of psychology. In order to
understand their significance at the time, however, we must first place them
briefly in context.
b. The Intellectual Background
Darwin's assertion of the essential continuity of the evolutionary line
from the other animals to man raised the issues of the nature, origin and li
mits of animal learning and intelligence, and of the proper ordering of the
species along the line of continuity. In the English-language literature
there were three major lines of opinion on these issues. One extended the pro
perties normally associated with intelligent behavior or thought far down the
species scale, either in anecdotal fashion, as in the work of George John
Romanes, or as part of an attempt to establish more general biological bases
for behavior in general, as in the work of Herbert Spencer Jennings. A second
line of thought attributed apparently intelligent behavior in animals to the
imitation of human beings. Finally, others applied the "principle of parsimony"
enunciated by Conway Lloyd Morgan: "In no case may we interpret an action as the
200 Kohler to Waldeyer, 12 March 1914, 29 March 1914; Waldeyer to Kohler, 14

May 1914, 4 April 1914, in Akademie-Archiv, II: XIII2, Bnd. 13, Bl. 112-
14, 122-23, 129-31, 139-42.
- 380 -
outcome of the exercise of a higher psychological faculty, if it can be in
terpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower on the
psychological scale." Morgan proposed his rule of interpretation in direct
opposition to Romanes' anecdotal approach. Both were Darwinists; but Morgan
sought to give Darwinism a more secure scientific foundation, thinking that
if continuity could be shown in spite of his cannon, then the truth of evolu-
201
tionary theory would be proved beyond all doubt.
In his dissertation of 1898, entitled "Animal Intelligence," Edward
Thorndike cast his lot unreservedly with Morgan. His aim was "to give the
coup de grace to the despised theory that animals reason." In opposition to
Romanes' assertion that achievements such as dogs' opening door latches could
not have happened by accident, Thorndike claimed that "they certainly do."
He enclosed animals, mainly cats and dogs, in so-called puzzle or problem
boxes, and measured the time required for them to pull a string which opened
the door and permitted them to reach food they could smell outside. Thorn
dike's thesis was that what was learned was a tendency to react. Drawing
a direct analogy from Darwinian natural selection, and combining it with
assumptions drawn from Lockean empiricism and associationism, he argued that
on the basis of an instinctive motor impulse random behavior is tried until the
correct solution occurs by chance. The necessary acts are than learned gradual
ly in sequence, as the pleasure that comes with success "stamps in" an asso-
202
ciative connection between sensory impressions and motor impulses.
201 Conway Lloyd Morgan, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (London,

1894), pp. 47 ff.
202 Edward L. Thorndike, Animal Intelligence (New York, 1911, repr. New York,
1965), esp. pp. 67 ff., 112 ff. For discussions of Thorndike's methods
and the context in which they were developed, see John C. Bumham, "Thorn
dike's Puzzle Boxes," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci.. 8 (1972), pp. 159-67.
- 381 -
When Thorndike applied his methods to primates, particularly gibbons
and macaques, in 1901, he discovered that their learning curves were far more
abrupt than those of cats and dogs. After a smaller number of trials, the
time required for solution dropped abruptly and the solution remained fixed
longer. He thus took care to exempt primates from many of his strictures
about animal stupidity. But he retained his basic schema of sensory-motor con
nections, adding only the primates, because of their larger brains, could have
203
more "free ideas" and thus associate more readily. Thorndikes methods were
attacked on publication by Wesley Mills, among others, because of their un-
naturalness for the animals, an issue which is still a matter of dispute be
tween behaviorists and ethologists today. Nonetheless, the "trial and error
method" became one of the fundamental procedures in animal psychology, since
it apparently provided usable quantitative data about animal learning and
thus legitimated the field as natural science. Thorndike also hoped to use
the method, or suitable variations of it, with human subjects, and thus to
use scientific techniques to solve social problems, particularly in educa-

204
txon.
A somewhat similar range of opinion was evident in German-language dis
cussion of these issues. Here, however, the primary focus of criticism was
not the anecdotes of Romanes, but the spectacular feats alleged of animals like
203 Thorndike, Animal Intelligence, pp. 189, 192, 238-39.
204 For early attacks on Thorndike's methods, see Bumham, "Thorndike's

Puzzle Boxes," p. 165. Cf. Phillip Howard Gray, "The Early Animal Beha
viorists: Prolegomenon to Ecology," Isis, 59 (1968), pp. 372^-83. For
Thorndike's work in educational psychology, see Geraldine Joncich, The
Sane Positivist: A Biography of Edward Lee Thorndike (Middletown, Ct.,
1968).
- 382 -
the horse "Clever Hans". When he investigated this animal in 1904, Oskar
Pfungst, then a cowoiker in Stumpfs institute, took what might be called
a sophisticated negativist position. He showed that the celebrated horse's
alleged ability to multiply and divide was actually due to its perception
of signals from human counterparts, unconsciously transmitted by eye movements.
Once these were excluded by the use of blinkers and arithmetic problems were
posed by others, to which the experimenter himself did not know the answer,
the animal failed completely. Pfungst credited Hans with high perceptual abi
lity and an adequate memory for images, but certainly not with the ability to
205
think. The parallel with Wundts polemic against spiritism two decades
earlier was notable. Such investigations were not only a way to learn about
the capabilities of animals, but also a means of legitimating the methods of
experimental psychology and of reinforcing the gap between expert scientist
and credulous amateur. However, the way this was done was apparently dif
ferent on the two sides of the Atlantic. Whereas Thorndike was most anxious
to obtain quantifiable results and set up his experiments accordingly, Pfungst
applied the primarily qualitative methods taught in Stumpf's institute.
Pfungst pursued a similar line of interpretation in his study of
more than two hundred apes of different species, which he reported at the 1912
congress of the Society for Experimental Psychology. Arguing against enthu
siastic reports by Alexander Sokolowsky based on observations in Hagenbecks
Zoo in Hamburg, Pfungst, like Thorndike, acknowledged that anthropoid apes could
be considered intelligent, but only in the sense that they learn more rapidly
205 Oskar Pfungst, Das Pferd des Herrn von Osten (Per kluge Hans). (Leipzig,
1907), with introduction and supplements by Carl Stumpf.
- 383 -
and form and retain more complicated associations than other animals. But
there was "no proof as yet" of concept formation, nor did Pfungst see any
evidence of the imitation of human beings. Such conclusions also applied
to the recently famous Elberfeld horses, which were supposed to be able
to do fourth roots. However, both Pfungst and Sokolowsky admitted that ob
servations in zoos were insufficient basis for a satisfactory judgement of
the issues. Thus it was opportune that Max Rothmann announced the plan to
206
establish an anthropoid research station at the same session.
It was there, too, that Kohler first publicly indicated his interest
in comparative psychology. During a visit he had made to the Elberfeld
horses, he reported, they "could not even achieve what Clever Hans easily
managed, according to all reports." He suggested that "all enthusiastic re
ports are attributable to insufficient attention to sources of experimental

207
error and the calculation of probabilities." Kohler continued his involve
ment in the discussion from Tenerife, offering to challenge the owner of
the Elberfeld horses to try some of the new "intelligence tests" on "his
stallions," and thus solve the problem and end the publicity once and for
all. Kohler retreated when Waldeyer advised him to remain calm. However,
206 Pfungst, "Zur Psychologie der Affen," in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,

Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1912
(Leipzig, 1913), pp. 200-05. Rothmann's announcement is on p. 203.
Cf. Alexander Sokolowsky, Beobachtungen fiber die Psyche der Menschen-
affen (Frankfurt a.M., 1908). Ironically, Pfungst deprived himself
of the chance to reap fame as director of the station. He was offer
ed the position, but remained indecisive; and so Teuber went to Tene
rife instead. Stumpf to Waldeyer, 3 December 1912, Akademie-Archiv
II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13, Bl. 4.
207 Kohler, discussion contribution in Pfungst, "Zur Psychologie der Affen,"

p. 204.
- 384 -
though he had thus shown himself to be a partisan of science over amateurism,
he was certainly no negativist as far as primate intelligence was concerned.
For, as he wrote to Waldeyer, his results clearly spoke for Sokolowsky and
208
against Pfungst in their debate.
c. "Intelligence Tests on Chimpanzees: The Work and its Initial Reception
Kohlers observations have been reported in numerous places. Important
here is to prevent briefly the main types of "achievements" recorded, and to
show their relation both to the general theoretical issues at stake and to
the development of Gestalt theory in particular. As Kohler noted, all the
"performances" he observed were variations on a single theme, the overcoming
of an obstacle to reach a goal object, usually food. He presented the va
riations in order of difficulty; but as the dates of observation he provided
show, the order of presentation was not that of the tests as given. Evident
ly Kohler had ordered his results systematically after the fact. The "exempla
ry" case Kohler presented at the beginning showed that his true aim was to
study intelligent behavior in general, not only that of anthropoids, for
no ape was involved. He constructed an enclave in which he placed in turn
a female dog, several chickens and his daughter, who had just learned to
walk. Each time a fence separated an attractive object from the animal in
such a way that it had to make a detour to reach it. For the dog and the
child, the solution came quickly and showed many of the same features -
first a slight turn of the head, then "a kind of jerk" or sudden movement,
followed immediately by a single, smooth movement around the corner of the
208 Kohler to Waldeyer, 23 May 1914, Akademie-Archiv II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13,
pp. 146-47.
- 385 -
barrier and toward the goal (see Figure 12a). The real difficulty of such
apparently simple solutions became clear in the case of the dog, when food
was placed so close to the fence that she did not move, but remained "fixed"
209
to the spot by the smell.
In the case of the chickens, the solution came more slowly and in a
different way. The "less gifted" animals continually ran up against the
barrier, and only came to a solution when they more or less accidentally
landed at the right spot in the course of their zig-zag wanderings (see Fi
gure 12b). In general, Kohler concluded, there was "a very obvious difference
in form" between what he called "genuine achievements" (echte Leistungen) and
"imitations of chance":
6-oaf
Figure 12a:"Genuine achievements" and Figure 12b: "imitations of chance"
Source: Kohler, Intelligenzpriifungen, p. 11.
209 Kohler, "Intelligenzpriifungen an Anthropoiden," Abhandl. der konigl.

Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., phys.-math. Kl., 1917, Nr. 1; 3rd ed., Intel-
ligenzpriifungen an Menschenaffen (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1973);
The Mentality of Apes, trans. of 2nd ed. by Ella Winter (1925), paper
back ed. (New York, 1959). Citations are to the translation, hereafter
designated Mentality, here pp. 14-15, and to the third German edition,
designated Intelligenzpriifungen, here p. 10. The translation has been
checked against both German texts and altered where this seemed appro
priate.
- 386 -
The genuine achievement takes place as a single continuous occur

rence, a unity, as it were, in space as well as in time, in our
example as one continuous run, without a second's stop, right up
to the objective. A successful chance solution consists of an
agglomeration of separate movements, which start, end, and start
again, remaining independent of one another in speed and direction,
and only [appear to] start at the starting point and end at the
objective when added geometrically.210
Kohler constructed the entire argument of the book around this distinction,
but the methodological and epistemological problems raised by it are perhaps
better discussed after a more complete account of the results.
The apes dealt with such detours rather easily. When Kohler tried
to learn more by making the tests more difficult for them, they responded
with new kinds of "genuine achievements," particularly the use and making
of tools. In the simplest examples of this, the apes used already avail
able objects as extensions of their bodies. Most frequently this meant
using a stick to pull in a piece of fruit lying outside their enclosure.
Other, more acrobatic feats possible only for aboreal creatures like these
belong in the same category. These included climbing up an open door and
"riding" it toward a piece of fruit hanging from the ceiling of the compound,
using "jumping sticks" like vaulting poles, or even using people as "lad-
211
ders" to reach the same goal when it hung too far away from the door.
More challenging, and perhaps more indicative of the kind of intelligence
involved,was a situation in which Kohler laid a number of strings in va
rious alignments along the ground outside the apes' enclosure, but :tied
210 Kohler, Mentality, p. 17; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 12. Emphasis

in the original.
211 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 30 ff., 46 f., 52 ff., 64 f.; Intelligenzpru-

fungen, pp. 22 ff., 35 f., 39 ff., 50 f.
- 387 -
only one of them to the fruit. Ihe results, especially the mistakes, showed
the importance of perception. Sultan, e.g., tended to pull the string
that appeared to reach the fruit by the shortest distance from the bars; but
he will always pull the string if it visibly touches the objective.

It appears doubtful whether the conception of 'connexion' in our
practical human sense signifies more for the chimpanzee in such
experiments than visual contact in a higher or lower degree.212
Other tests went beyond the use of tools as extensions of the body,
or acrobatic feats. Most impressive of these was the construction of box
towers to reach particularly high-hung pieces of fruit. Here the apes were
confronted with "tools" that they were not likely to have used before, and
certainly not in this way. Here, too, both individual differences among
the apes and the fundamental difference of chimpanzee from human perception
became noticeable.- Of the six apes, only three, including Sultan, managed
constructions of more than two boxes. Kohler remarked that the apes seemed
to possess nothing of the "naive statics" of human beings. They showed no
appreciation of the arrangement required to build a stable tower, nor of
the notion that placing one box on top of another is a "mere repetition" of
213
putting the first box on the ground.
Probably the most spectacular instance of tool making was again
the work of Sultan. He was given two hollow bamboo sticks with openings
of different diameters, neither of which was long enough to reach the banana
lying outside the bars. More than an hours trying yielded no solution,
212 Kohler, Mentality, p. 29; Intelligenzpriifungen, p. 21. Emphasis in

the original.
213 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 37 ff., 120 ff., esp. pp. 38, 121, 132-33;
Intelligenzprufungen, pp. 28 ff., 96 ff., esp. pp. 29, 98 ff., 106-
07.
- 388 -
though he did make the "good error," as Kohler called it, of using one
stick to push the other toward the fruit. The experiment was then inter
rupted, but the rods left with the animal. While playing with them, he
brought them into a straight line. Suddenly he placed one inside the
other, jumped up and ran to the bars and pulled in the banana with his
"double stick." "The proceedings seem to please him immensely," Kohler
wrote,for he kept on pulling in pieces of fruit and other objects with-

214
out stopping to eat or handle them. In other instances, the apes de
monstrated the extent and limits of their ability to "see" what Kohier
called the "situational value" of objects. Needing a stick but finding
none, the apes would catch sight of a tree, tear of a branch and use
it, thus "seeing" the branch as a tool. On the other hand, Kohler report
ed, they were quite incapable of "seeing" a box as a tool for climbing
when another ape was lying on it, or when it was in a corner, and thus
215
"merged" with the adjoining wall.
Most difficult of all for the apes were tests that demanded a com
bination of detours and tool use. Most revealing was a situation re
quiring the use of a tool to take a detour. Kohler constructed a drawer-like
apparatus with one side open and one side closed, and placed a banana in it
so that the closed side stood between the ape and the fruit and the open
side faced away from the animal. To get the banana, the apes thus had to
push it with a stick away from themselves and around the barrier before
they could draw it toward themselves, as they were used to doing. They
214 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 113-15; Intelligenzprufungen, pp. 90-93.
215 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 94 ff., 99-100, 159; Intelligenzprufungen,

pp. 73 ff., 78-79, 128-29.
- 389 -
generally managed this, but only after long periods of evident perplexity.
Even after they had started a "correct" solution, they tended at times to
start pulling the fruit back again, as though affected by some kind of
"resistance". For Kohler, this and other tests required the animals "to
adapt their direction of procedure to the forms before them"; and there they
reached the limits of their ability. 216
Such a dry listing does not do justice to the emotional range of
the apes' behavior, or to the liveliness of Kohler's account. He pointed
again and again to the role of affect, especially the animals' eloquent,
but generally- unsuccessful, pleas for help in solving a problem, or the
fits of rage into which they fell when they failed, when they would go tear
ing and screaming about the enclosure and smashing the offending instrument
against the walls. Such rages were often followed by sudden calm, and a
successful solution. He also emphasized that these primates are thoroughly
social animals, but he noted that this sociability - shown, for example,
by the "skin treatment" they gave one another with evident pleasure - should
not be confused with altruism. Once, when one of the apes tried to push
a box to a spot under the hanging objective and found it too heavy, others
quickly joined in and pushed along with it. But as soon as they were near
enough to the goal, one of them quickly jumped up on the box, snatched down
217
the fruit and ran off, making no move to share its booty with the others.
After recounting such observations, Kohler knew that he would have
216 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 205 ff., 219; Intelligenzprufungen, pp. 166 ff.,
176.
217 Kohler, Mentality, e.g. pp. 42, 44, 80 ff., 150 f.; Intelligenzpru
fungen, pp. 31-32, 34, 63 ff., 122.
- 390 -
to defend himself against charges of "anthropomorphism." He was fully
aware of the danger of upsetting the carefully contrived applecart in
which a sophisticated negativist stance was a guarantee of scientific
expertise and standing. He therefore made numerous photographs and films

2i3
of the apes behavior "to convince the doubters," as he wrote to Waldeyer.
None of his descriptive terminology was anthropomorphic, he insisted. The
way the apes went about solving problems was directly observable, and there
was no need to read any notions from human behavior into it. People look
ing for a lost object look different from people strolling idly, and such
differences "occur exactly in chimpanzees as in man." If such description
is anthropomorphic, Kohler argued, then so is the statement that "chimpanzees
have the same tooth formula as man." In his accounts, he emphasized, "nothing
is said about the 'consciousness' of the animal, but only about its 'be
havior.'" Nor was he trying "to prove that the chimpanzee is a marvel of
intelligence"; his results indicated the animals' limitations as clearly
as their admittedly great abilities. They possessed "no inclination or gift,
for instance, for the study of fourth roots or elliptic functions," something
o 19
Kohler obviously regretted having to point out in "a serious book.
Kohler did not rule out imitation as one possible source of these
performances. However, he pointed out, the chimpanzees generally learned
by imitating one another, not by imitating human beings. This was shown
by their frequent "fashions," in which the use of jumping sticks, for example,
218 Kohler to Waldeyer, 7 March 1914, Akademie-Archiv II: XIII , Bnd. 13,
Bl. 111.
219 Kohler, Mentality, esp. pp. 93 & 182, n. 6; cf. pp. 126 f.; Intelli
genzprufungen , pp. 73 & 147, n. 1.
- 391 -
spread rapidly from its inventor to the other animals. Yet far more
was involved in "simple imitation" than met the eye of the superficial
observer. Even in such cases, Kohler contended, "it is most difficult -
for chimpanzees to imitate anything unless they themselves understand

220
it." The use of words like this showed that, despite his denial of
anthropomorphism, Kohler felt justified in concluding that chimpanzees
showed "a type of behavior which counts as specifically human," the abili
ty to act with "insight" or "understanding." This choice of terms proved
to be highly unfortunate, as both scientists and laypeople continued to
read mentalism into them. Kohler's best defense against this was the
apparent simplicity and testability of his criterion for the presence of
"insight," which he derived by generalizing from the criterion for "genuine
achievements" already quoted:
In these, a smooth, continuous course, sharply divided by an ab

rupt break from the preceeding behavior, is usually extremely
characteristic. This process as a whole also corresponds to the
structure of the situation, to the relation of its parts to one
another ....Suddenly the smooth and unchecked movement occurs
along the corresponding curve of solution. We are forced to the
impression that this curve appears as an adequate whole from the
beginning, the product of a complete survey of the whole situa
tion.... Hence follows this criterion of insight: the appearance
of a complete solution [Gesamtlosung] with respect to the structure
of the field BhLdstrukturj .221
Kohler thought that two kinds of observations offered particularly
convincing support for this criterion. The first involved "good errors,"
220 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 65-66, 140, 198 ff.; Intelligenzprufungen,

p. 50 f., 112, 160 ff. Cf. Kohler, The Task of Gestalt Psychology
(Princeton, 1969), pp. 156-57.
221 Kohler, Mentality, p. 169; Intelligenzpriifungen, pp. 136-37. Empha

sis in the original.
- 392 -
one of which we have already noted above. These were not undirected or un
coordinated acts, but clear-cut attempts at a solution which were consistent
with the structure of the situation but nonetheless false. The second was
the pause that often occurred after a few unsuccessful attempts, in which the
animal would look back and forth from tool to objective, scratch its head,
and appear to be quite literally surveying the situation. This alone was
222
enough to convince at least one visiting expert, Kohler reported.
However, simple as this criterion seemed, it actually contained a
number of presuppositions. The first of these was that a complete survey of
the situation is always necessary. Kohler provided a negative example of
this himself, when he threw food over a wall or into an adjoining room and
993
the animal ran after it. The second was that this survey gives rise to
the behavior. Actually, it may be succeeded by the behavior, but it cannot
be said to cause it directly, without the intervention of a process in the
animal. Kohler realized this, but said nothing directly about such proces
ses here. Third, the statement that the animal responds with "the behavior
required for the solution" sounds as though there could only be one "re
quired" behavior. Yet Kohler's observations showed that there could be
multiple routes to a solution, and the apes often surprised him by finding
a route different from the one he thought they would discover, such as the
use of jumping sticks.
Most significant, and problematic, however, was the idea that the apes'
performance gives "the appearance of a complete solution." This is obviously
as much as statement about the observer as about the animal. Kohler claimed
222 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 139 ff., 171; Intelligenzprufungen, pp. 112 ff.,
138.
223 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 21 ff.; Intelligenzprufungen, pp. 15 ff.
- 393 -
that this was merely a descriptive statement; the how or why of this appearance
were matters for "theory". But in fact, the notion that phrases like "the
structure of the field" are descriptions at all presupposes Wertheimers
conception of the "epistemological process," with its hierarchy of the gi
ven. The idea that "curves of solution" occur within such structured "si
tuations" is an extension of Wertheimer's conception to action. The simi
larity to Koffka's revision of the stimulus concept, and especially to his
conflation of seen Gestalten and formed behavior, is evident. Apparently Koh
ler had worked his way through to such a view without the support of Ameri
can functionalism.
He had, however, read Mind in Evolution by Leonard Trelawney Hob-
house, and was "very astonished," as he reported to Waldeyer in May of 1914;
for he "had never heard" of the "excellent experiments" in it before. Many
of Kohler's experiments were borrowed or modified from Hobhouse's work
with a rhesus monkey, a chimpanzee and other animals. Hobhouse, too, noted
cases in which the animals seemed to come upon a solution "in a flash." He
also spoke of their "critical successes" or "decisive trials" and even, in a

224
sense, of their "good errors." There were also broad areas of contact be
tween the two at the theoretical level. In opposition to Thorndike's re
liance on the associative connection of instinctive impulses, Hobhouse argued
that the behavior he observed should be called "perceptual learning." By
224 Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution (1901), 2nd ed. (London,
1915; repr. New York, 1973), esp. chap. 12, pp. 190 f., 239, 274,
280. Kohler's acknowledgement of Hobhouse's experiments is in Mentality,
p. 30, n. 1; cf. Intelligenzprufungen, p. 22, n. The report to
Waldeyer is in Kohler to Waldeyer, 23 May 1914, Akademie-Archiv, II:
XIII2, Bnd. 13, Bl. 146.
- 394 -
this he meant habit formation controlled by the concrete perception of re
sults. The animals appeared to b-im to have "knowledge of concrete objects,"
that is, of objects "as the centers of many relations." They must therefore
be capable of "drawing inferences from one object to another similar only
in the relation of its parts." This "analogical extension" then became the
basis of what Hobhouse called "practical judgment," borrowing a term from
G.F. Stout. This he described as a reproductive "synthesis of perceptual

225
elements" qualitatively different from association or assimilation.
Hobhouse's theoretical project was to find an adequate place for
mind in nature without resorting to reductionism. In this context he
employed philosophical terminology in an original way to cover the transition
stages from mechanism to mind. Much of what Kohler had observed could easi
ly fit under Hobhouse' concept of "perceptual learning." However, instead
of reapplying older terms, Kohler tried to develop a different interpreta
tive language on the basis of Wertheimer's epistemology. That language em
phasized the organism's immediate, visual grasp of and functional adapta
tion to the logic of the present situation, or "the relation of its parts
to one another," rather than the reproductive synthesis of present and past.
Though he had evidence that the apes' memories - for the location of buried
fruit, for example - could be very good, he nonetheless asserted that chim
panzees live in a very limited time-frame: "one never saw them deliberately
226
concentrate on the successful choice with an eye to the future." With
225 Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution, chaps. 8-12, esp. pp. 258 ff., 294-95,
305 ff.
226 Kohler, "Zur Psychologie des Schimpansen" (1921), repr. in Intelligenz

prufungen, pp. 195-232, esp. pp. 197, 200-01; "Some Contributions to
the Psychology of Chimpanzees," in Mentality, esp. pp. 244, 248-49.
- 395 -
such a language of the continually recurring present, Kohler could only ex
plain the animals * ability to reproduce successful solutions months, even
years later by referring to "structured whole processes" in the cortex,
as Wertheimer had done in the case of the phi phenomenon. This was what
he meant when he used the word "theory", but he did not elaborate upon
or even clarify that point here.
Yet even at the level of description, the application of Wertheimers
model to primates presented obvious epistemological problems. To put it
briefly, the experimenters survey of the situation overlaps uncomfortably
with that of the animal. This problem went deeper than the issue of anthro
pomorphic language, and Kohler faced it directly in a later essay. How is
it possible, he asked, that "there are realities in the animals investigated
which are perceptible to us only in these total impressions .... In what
manner do the total processes in and on the body of the ape produce total
impressions in our perception?" He rejected the doctrine of inference by
analogy; but he recognized that he had no replacement for it, only "new
questions." Certainly "it is in principle quite possible that an objective
relationship exists"; but "until we know more about the real correspondence
between behavior, conscious processes and the inorganic world, we are depen
dent upon observation even without sufficient theoretical insight r'.into its
227
nature. Such things are often enough necessary in science."
Nonetheless, Kohler claimed to have "crucial tests" that were de-
227 Kohler, "Methods of Psychological Research with Apes',1 (1921), trans.

Mary Henle, in Selected Papers (cited above, n. 112), pp. 197-223,
here pp. 206, 209-10. Emphasis in the original.
- 396 -
cisive against any explanation of these observations in terms of chance.
One experiment in particular he "carried out as a model" because of its
"unequivocal relation to several theories." He tied a rope to a heavy
stone,then wound it around a piece of fruit and laid it obliquely to the bars
with the free end extending between them, as shown (Figure 13a). After first
pulling in the direction of the string, four of the animals solved the pro
blem by passing the rope hand over hand along the bars until the fruit was
in reach (Figure 13b). The solution occurred "without any hesitation," as
soon as the apes saw the rope. According to Kohler, Thorndike's theory de
mands, first, that the original solution must occur by chance, and, second,
that the movements required for the solution must then be learned individual
ly, and the habits gradually associated with one another to form a whole
act. Kohlers test showed the exact opposite. There was no collection of ran
dom motions, one of which achieves the solution by chance, but "only two
movements," both of which are "sensible" responses to the situation. In
response to one likely criticism, Kohler admitted that we cannot know whether
the apes had already developed the motions involved before their captivity
and were only applying them in this case. He insisted, however, that this
was unlikely, and that even if it were the case, the transfer itself must still
u 1 J 228
be explained.
More revealing still, in Kohlers opinion, was the behavior of one
of the more intelligent animals, Chica, on a second trial. This time the
rope was stretched in the opposite direction from that of the previous trial.
Yet she passed it "straight away" along the bars in the appropriate direction
223 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 177 ff.; Intelligenzpriifungen, pp. 143 ff.
- 397 -
Figure 13: Rope and bars task
Source: Kohler, Mentality, pp. 177, 180; cf. Intelligenzprufungen, pp. 143,
145.
until she obtained her reward. According to Thorndikes theory as Kohler
construed it, this solution contained none of the operations originally
learned; she should have had to relearn the "new" solution from the beginning.
Clearly, Kohler had made his demonstration appear crucial by constructing
Thorndikes theory as literally and extremely as possible. Still, he had
indeed .touched the sore point of that theory, the problem of explaining
successful learning with only one trial. After this, he wrote, "I did
229
not think it necessary to make the same experiment with the other animals."
229 Kohler, Mentality, p. 179; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 145.
- 398 -
Clearly, not only Kohlers criterion of "insight" but his entire
approach to the problem was qualitative, not quantitative. 6e took no
time measurements, because he found them largely irrelevant and too depen
dent upon circumstances. His presentation of results was structured from
beginning to end as a challenge to Thorndike's method and the assumptions
behind it. His primary methodological criticism was similar to the one
that had been made in America, that the puzzle box situation so limited
the animals' perception of the situation that the first successful solution
could only occur by chance. In his own work, Kohler declared, "everything
230
depends upon the situation being open to the subject." He stated quite
explicitly that, although he generally made no attempt to instruct the ani
mals, "arrangements are usually made so that it is not easy for accident
al solutions to take place"; and he often moved a stick or changed other
aspects of the arrangement - usually when the apes were not looking - to
231
make a "genuine" solution easier. Obviously Kohler was not advocating
ethological field observation as the only alternative to experiments with
puzzle boxes or mazes. Instead he had transplanted the phenomenological
methods of the Berlin institute to Tenerif?. His primary purpose was the
same as Wertheimer's had been in his experiments on motion perception to
construct situations in which "good" phenomena might happen, so that their
"essence" could be revealed.
Thus, although he repeated his tests often during his stay on Te
nerife, Kohler included only a few later observations in his report, be-
231 Kohler, Mentality, p. 172, n. 5; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 139, n. 1.
- 399 -
cause they all duplicated the earlier ones, and he was clearly most fasci
nated by the first successful solution. He found the mechanization that
resulted from later repetition and practice "ugly, "constrained" and "in
different to the essence of what has been demanded." Alluding to the "stu
pidities" that often crept into later trials, Kohler admitted "that I like
the behavior of the chimpanzees during their tenth or eleventh repetitions
of a solution less than that in the first or second. Something is spoilt"

232
in the interval. Remarks like these reflect not only the intellectual
and social milieu from which the Gestalt theorists came, but a corresponding
commitment to what we might call an aesthetic as opposed to a technocratic
concept of science. Essential for Kohler was not the last step, grasping
the fruit, but the structured process directed toward that goal. Consistent
with this was his attitude toward the possible applications of this results.
He proposed using his methods with children of different ages, arguing that
they are "certainly as scientifically valuable as the intelligence tests
usually employed." At the same time, however, he said that "it does not
matter so much if they do not become immediately practicable for school or

,,233
other uses.
This conception of science was intimately intertwined from the begin
ning with Kohler's theoretical commitments. He alleged that Thorndike had
to make a decision about the definition of intelligence before his experi
ments began, in order to decide that he had found no evidence of it; but the
233 Kohler, Mentality, p. 239 & n.; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 193.

Kohler remarked here that "M. Wertheimer has been expressing this
view for some years in his lectures."
- 400 -
same was true for Kohler's work. Theoretically, Thorndike's model was
based on a synthesis of Lockean sensationalism and classical associationism
with an analogy from Darwinian natural selection. Methodologically, the ex
perimenter stands outside the situation and measures. The "essence" of
the phenomenon, if such a word is appropriate at all, is the learning curve.
Statements about what is learned are hypotheses deduced from the moral,
not conclusions from observation. Kohler's model presupposes the existence
of the "situation" as a.structured unit "extending from the animal to the
fruit," as Koffka later put it. The essence of the phenomenon is the
"continuous curve of solution." Statements about what is learned are also
deduced from a model, but it is a model of description; the possibility of
a genuinely explanatory model is mentioned, but deliberately kept in the
background. Methodologically, the observer stands both inside and outside
the situation; measurement, if it occurs at all, is of secondary importance.
In the language of contemporary sociology of science, Kohler and Thorndike
developed two alternative frameworks for the social construction of know
ledge, each defined by different knowledge-interests (Erkenntnisinteressen).
Thorndike's long-range goals were technocratic, and the relation of experi
menter and subject in his work was correspondingly manipulative. In Kohler's
scientific socialization, psychological observation was a means to philoso
phical ends, and the experimenter-subject relation was more nearly that of
a partnership for the production of "good" phenomena. But the application
of such an approach to primates presented obvious problems, the main otebeing
234 Koffka, "Psychologie," in Max Dessoir, ed., Die Philosophie in ihren

Einzelgebieten (Berlin, 1925), p.
- 401 -
that of interpreting the "partners" behavioral reports about its own ex
perience.
Despite such problems, and the concomitant ambiguity of the con
cept of "insight", Kohler could claim to have taken a significant step away
from a simple yes or no position on the issue of animal intelligence. He
did not hesitate to place chimpanzees on the evolutionary scale; noting that
the absence of language and of a long-term time perspective separates them

235
from even the most primitive : human beings. However, he also made
it clear that previous schemata for constructing such rankings were inad
equate. Thorndikes sensationalism was clearly insufficient; but the limi
tations of the apes behavior at many levels, particularly in their handling
of forms, showed that "even intelligent behavior, the achievement of insight,

236
will not submit to intellectualistic interpretation," either. Kohler
repeatedly denied any intention of presenting a general theory of intelli
gent behavior. A satisfactory explanation of these performances will be
difficult, he maintained, "so long as no detailed Gestalt theory can be pre-

237
sented as a foundation." But his claim that his work was descriptive was
only partially correct; for he had adopted a theory-laden style of descrip
tion designed to pre-process his observations for just that theoretical pur
pose.
The response to Kohlers monograph was immediate, and in important
ways indicative both of prevailing convictions about science and of the con-
235 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 237-38; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 192.
- 402 -
tinuing importance attached to philosophical vocabulary in descriptive psy
chology. The work appeared just as Karl Buhler was completing his survey,
The Mental Development of the Child, which was structured around a three-
stage evolutionary schema from instinct to training to intellect. He re
cognized the relevance of Kohler's observations for.-this framework, and tried
out some of the experiments with moderate success on his daughter, then nine
months old. In general he agreed with Kohler's view that the behavior in
volved in these problem-solving situations was based on "an inner event," the
"recognition of a state of affairs," after which 'the solution follows smooth
ly and in one motion, in a manner "similar to well-trained habits." In this
respect he saw Kohler's results as "a welcome confirmation and valuable ex-
,i offt.*
tension his own. 238
However, he opposed what he called the "rapid conclusion from visible
events to conscious processes." These "discoveries" (Einfalle), as he named
them, were not due to trial and error; but they should not be equated with in
sight or intelligent behavior in the human sense. Rather, they were "blind,
that is, uninsightful achievements of the associative mechanism." To show
genuine insight, we must prove "that the chimpanzee can form judgments." In
a later essay, Biihler called this "a sufficient minimal supposition [Mindest-
039
annahme]" according to "the imperative of parsimony." He thus invoked a
rule of scientific explanation to support his attempt to reconcile the con-
238 Karl Buhler, Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes (Jena, 1918), forward
and pp. 278-82.
239 Buhler, "Der Ur sprung des Intellektes," Die Naturwissenschaften, 9

(1921), pp. 144-51, esp. pp. 147-8.
- 403 -
tinuity demanded by evolutionary theory with an essentially Kantian
psychological vocabulary, which confined intelligence to the activity
of reason and drew a firm line between perception and intellectual operations
upon it.
The tendency of the Jesuit psychologist Johannes Lindworsky's cri
ticism was not dissilar to Biihler's. In a review for a Catholic '

, intellectual
journal published in !918, he recognized the consequences of Kohler's work
clearly: "all previous arguments against the animal mind based on the non
recognition of the relation of means and ends or the non-construction of
tools seem to be refuted .... According to Kohler," he averred, "the ani-

240
mals have real thinking." This statement already reveals the conceptual
basis of Lindworsky's critique. He disagreed with Biihler's limitation of in
sight or "real thinking" to judgment and agreed with Kohler that even the
"simplestgrasp of relations" defined "thinking in the proper sense." He
arrived at this view two years before in experiments on the processes in
volved in syllogistic reasoning, which he did in Bonn with Wurzburg methods
and using Buhler as one of the subjects. Lindworsky found that the "insight
into the relation between major and minor premisses necessary for the com
pletion of logical conclusions came "in a flash" (aufblitzt), in a single,

241
preconscious act. However, he denied just this "relational consciousness"
(Beziehungserkenntnis) to the apes. The essence of relational thinking is
240 Johannes Lindworsky, review of Kohler, Intelligenzpriifungen, Stimmen

der Zeit, 95 (1918), pp. 386-87.
241 Lindworsky, "Das scbluBfolgernde Denken. Experimentelle Untersuchun-

gen, Stimmen der Zeit, Erganzungsheft 1 (Freiburg, 1916).
- 404 -
"liberation from the situation of the moment," and precisely this is lacking
in the primates* behavior. Here there was "no spontaneous and lasting pro
gress" beyond the purely accidental, strictly associative first achievement.
Like Buhler, Lindworsky attributed more flexibility to imagery and instinct
than Kohler was willing to do. For him the use of a tree branch as a stick
was a simple matter of "associative substitution". Kohler's experiments,
then, yielded no more than "a concrete picture of what purely sensory images,
242
combined with some inherited instincts, can achieve."
Both Buhler*s and Lindworsky*s conceptions of intelligence were ob
viously drawn from human capabilities such as language and logic, and their
critiques of Kohler were based on the not so hidden assumption that the apes,
lacking humaness, could not possess anything resembling these capabilities.
Kurt Koffkas later rejoinder to this, though perhaps too blunt, nonetheless
reached the heart of the matter. On - the basis of assumptions like Lindworsky's
243
he claimed, no one would ever have thought to try these experiments. Still,
despite the weaknesses in their positions and their differences from one
another, the common, implicit message of Buhler*s and Lindworsky*s criticisms
was significant. Kohlers overlapping of categories applied to seeing and
to thinking, they were saying, reduced the clarity of important distinctions,
and thus made psychology less capable of dealing with the specifically human
problems relevant to the broader philosophical tasks set for it in its German
setting.
242 Lindworsky, review of Kohler, p. 393.
243 Koffka, The Growth of the Mind (1921), trans. R.M. Ogden (New York,
1924), p. 220.
- 405 -
The assessment of Germanys leading specialist in animal psychology,
Gustav Kafka, was more oriented to the categories of natural science than
to those of logic and language. He focused specifically on what he saw
as the lack of objective criteria to distinguish sharply between insight
ful and noninsightful problem solutions. He, like Buhler, noted that "seeing
the situation" was not a sufficient criterion, as the animals also retrieved
objects thrown into another room. Nor was the suddenness of the solution ad
equate, because the definition of "suddenness" inevitably depended on the or
dinates chosen for the graphictime-curve. . The idea of grasping the "sense"
or "meaning of a situation was also unclear. All behavior, Kafka found,
involved "the grasp of meaning" (Bedeutungserfassung) in one sense or another,
since animals react only to stimuli which have concrete meaning for them.
The only difference here is that objects that had had no such "meaning" be
fore suddenly acquired it under the pressure of the detour situation. Kohler
was right to point to the significance of this difference, but Kafka preferred
to describe it in associationistic terms. The detour situation is "an in
hibition of instinct" which persists until "experience" directs behavior along
the right "paths". Evidently neither Kohlers scientific approach nor
his vocabulary found complete or immediate acceptance.
Nonetheless, Buhler, Lindworsky, Kafka and the others joined the
entire scientific community in both Germany and America in recognizing the
importance and value of Kohlers work. The tests he used were applied to
244 Gustav Kafka, "Tierpsychologi^" in Gustav Kafka, et al., e d s Hand-

buch der vergleichenden Psychologie, vol. 1 (Munich, 1922) , esp.
pp. 129-33.
- 406 -
human subjects almost immediately. In a summary of recent research on anthro
poids published in 1921, one observer noted this and praised Kohler for avoid
ing two common errors, anthropomorphism and drawing conclusions about higher
animals from results obtained with methods suitable only for lower species-
These experiments "have been conducted carefully enough to retain their com
plete validity [Einwandfreiheit] forever," he concluded. This was the
kind of "fundamental achievement which one can only wish for in other areas
of animal psychology.
d. Doing Science in Wartime: Cooperation and Competition
Kohler's observations were substantially complete by June of 1914,
but publication was delayed by the outbreak of war. Kohler's reaction to
that event was no less enthusiastic than that of most of his generation.
As a. reservist, he was called up in the general mobilization of July, 1914;
but he was forced to remain on Tenerife, as he wrote to Waldeyer in early
August, because German, Italian and Spanish vessels all refused to take any
of the sixty German men of military age on the islands for fear of "difficul
ties" from Allied ships. Kohler was frustrated by the situation, above all
by the lack of news: "we hear of the war almost entirely from Paris, and
such obvious lies that one cannot read the newspaper." Still, he hoped for
a rapid end to hostilities "for the sake of all culture." Two months later
245 E. Schiche, "Die Psychology der Anthropoiden im Lichte neuerer Arbei-

ten," Zeitschrift fur angewandte Psychologie, 18 (1921), pp. 343-55,
esp. p. 355.
- 407 -
his patriotism was undimini shed: "Every time we have any news from Germany
there is a feast day, and we read the newspaper - normally so quickly leafed
through - like a work of literature. The contrast between the "spiteful,
low" style of the English and Spanish papers and the "outraged conviction"
of the German was obvious to Kohler. But "I cannot think of a trip to the
homeland, hard as it is to remain here. A steamer with 500 reservists on
board was captured recently, and only five got through." Under such con
ditions, there was no choice but "to try to continue with science.
By January, 1915, the conditions for that effort were established.
Mail delivery was assured with the help of Waldeyer's colleagues C.U. Ariens
Kappers in Holland and Richard Herbertz in Switzerland. Kohler was thus
able to order and receive books and other materials. With relatively
secure contact to the outside world, and with relative calm on the islands
themselves, thanks to Spain's neutrality, he was apparently able to work
quite well. In the next three years he produced three lengthy research mono
graphs and most of a major book, a total of nearly 600 printed pages. How
ever, this stage of his wartime internment was not without difficulty. Let
ters took four to five weeks in each direction, and were occasionally cen
sored or intercepted. The Academy's files contain numerous complaints from
Kohler about delays in the receipt of page proofs, manuscripts and above all
248
of necessary transfers of funds. A still more serious threat was posed
246 Kohler to Waldeyer, 10 August 1914 and 19 October 1914, Akademie-Ar-

chiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13, Bl. 167, 174.
247 See, e.g., Akademie-Archiv, II: XIII2> Bnd. 13, Bl. 227. Among the
books ordered was a midwifery manual. Kohler and his wife had three
children during their stay on the island.
248 Kohler to Waldeyer, 18 January 1915, 30 June 1915, 5 December 1915,
- 408 -
when he was rumored on. two different occasions, once before the outbreak
of war, to be spying or supplying German submarines from the station. The
second time the British consul went so far as to lodge an official protest.
In a more customary use of his key word, Kohler reported that the situa
tion was saved by "the insight of the Spaniards," as Spain had become more
249
friendly to Germany in the interval.
One of Kohler*s helpers in his scientific efforts was Robert Yerkes..
After his initial contacts with Rothmann and Teuber, Yerkes began attempts
to arrange a visit to the station to conduct research. In this connection
he wrote to Kohler in early 1914, and received a more cordial reply than
he had from Teuber. Kohler supplied full details of the living conditions
and research facilities at the station and immediately offered to exchange
reprints. Later he voiced enthusiasm about the idea of founding a research
station in the United States. It would have important "objective advantages,"
he wrote, if more animals could be studied, since the individual differences
among them were "truly amazing". In any case, "you in America investigate
these issues somewhat differently and would choose different problems for
research than we, and so both institutes would supplement one another beauti-
Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13, Bl. 186, 215-16, 230a. Cf.
Waldeyer, "Die Aathropoidenstation auf Teneriffa," Sitzungsber. der
konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., 1917, 1, pp. 401-02.
249 Kohler to Waldeyer, 19 April 1914, 28 August 1915, Akademie-Archiv,

II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13, Bl. pp. 124-25, 221.
250 Kohler to Yerkes, 17 April 1914, 19 May 1916, Yerkes papers, folder
29.
- 409 -
The two scientists developed an active correspondence by way of
Havana, which lasted as long as America remained neutral. Kohler reported
extensively to Yerkes about his research, and Yerkes helped him to obtain
251
books and had the films he had made of the apes' exploits developed.
Unfortunately, the literature exchange did not succeed as hoped. A long
delay in receiving reprints of Rothmann and Teuber's description of the sta
tion and of Kohler's first research paper prevented KShler from sending co
pies to Yerkes. Yerkes sent the requested '

, literature from America, but
it was diverted; it turned up a year later in a Madrid library. In the mean
time, Yerkes had published a monograph in which he described behavior in an
orangutan named 'Julius" that was quite similar to that of Kohler's chim
panzees .
Yerkes worked from February to August, 1915, with two monkeys of dif
ferent species and the orangutan in the private laboratory of a former stu
dent, G.7. Hamilton, on the estate of the McCormick family in Montecito,
California. The expenses of the study were paid by Hamilton. Yerkes assert
ed that "never before ... has any ape been subjected to observation under
systematically controlled conditions for so long a period" - an exaggerated
claim which he later dropped. He was, however, the first to do extensive
quantitative work with an anthropoid ape with a method and an apparatus spe
cifically designed to test problem solving capability. This was his newly de
developed "multiple choice method." For animals, the apparatus consisted
of a series of boxes with entrance and exit doors. Behind all of the exit
doors there was food, but the door was raised only when the animal made a "cor-
251 Kohler to Yerkes, 10 June 1915, 13 December 1916, 2 March 1917; Yerkes
to Kohler, 20 May 1914, Yerkes papers, folder 29.
- 410 -
rect" choice - e.g., if it chose the second door from the left. Otherwise
the animal was punished by being confined in the box. Yerkes measured the
ratio of correct to incorrect solutions and the time required for correct
. . 252
choices.
At first Julius continually chose the nearest door, a tendency simi
lar to the one we saw in Sultan to pull the string covering the shortest dis
tance between himself and the fruit. Then he suddenly solved the problem,
and repeated the solution on subsequent tests without a mistake. "Never be
fore has a curve of learning like this been obtained for an infrahuman ani
mal," Yerkes claimed. Such a result "obviously contradicts the law of the
gradual elimination of useless activities," and is "wholly at variance with
the principle of trial and error." Yerkes supplemented this with "qualita
tive" experiments using a box-stacking problem almost exactly like Kohlers.
Julius required more help from Yerkes than the chimpanzees had from Kohler;
but he, too, "got the idea" in the end. Though he used the word "insight"
,253
once, Yerkes generally preferred to call this behavior "ideational learning.'
Kohler received a copy of this work while writing up his own results,
and wrote to Yerkes that he regretted not having heard of it earlier. The
kind of learning exhibited, by his animals, he said, is "exactly as you de
scribe it in Julius' ... your description of behavior with boxes, sticks
and so forth could just as well be that of the chimpanzees in my experiments
... only I have, of course, been able to observe very much more for a longer
period with more animals." Though Kohler expressed himself courteously, the
252 Robert M. Yerkes, "The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes," Behavior
Monographs, vol. 3, No. 1 (Cambridge & Boston, 1916), pp. 2, 9 ff., 131
253 Yerkes, "Mental Life," pp. 68, 73, 96.
- 411 -
undertone of competition is unmistakable. Somewhat less courteous was
Kohlers response to some other remarks in Yerkes monograph. Yerkes had
called the Academys station "modest" and suggested that an American station
could he established "without regard to this initial attempt of the Germans."
Kohler stiffly asked whether "the future American station needs to begin
its activities with pronouncements which appear to indicate a low opinion of
the older enterprise," and voiced the opinion that judgment of a scienti
fic project should depend on its leadership, "about which you certainly do
254
not know," not upon the expense incurred.
Yerkes hastened to deny any anti-German feeling, and offered to trans
late and publish an abstract of Kohlers work in the Journal of Animal Be
havior, and to introduce it with an apology for not giving Kohler full cre
dit in his monograph. He emphasized, however, that he had as yet seen no
evidence of the work of the station. He was "more than willing to give
due credit" and would publish a statement "as soon as I have the necessary
data in hand." Actually, Kohler had conducted his trials a full year earlier
than Yerkes, and had described this and other work in his letters to him.
Yerkes had reported this, mentioning, for example, that Kohler had also em
ployed the box-stacking problems; but he did this in a manner which appeared
255
to diminish both the work's significance and Kohlers priority. America's
entry into the war shortly after this incident ended communication between
254 Kohler to Yerkes, 19 May 1916, folder 29. Cf. Yerkes, "Mental Life,"
pp. 2, 13637.
255 Yerkes to Kohler, 17 July 1916 and 20 October 1916, Yerkes papers,
folder 29. Cf. Yerkes, "Mental Life," p. 132.
- 412 -
the two researchers.
Apparently the wounds of war, and in Kohler's pride, took some time
to heal. Asked his opinion of the possibility of negotiations for an American
takeover of the station in the fall of 1919, Kohler replied that "even before
the States broke relations with us, Mr. Yerkes wrote so arrogantly and wound-
ingly about German research in general and our station in particular that I
must refuse to submit to further incivilities from this man in possible nego
tiations." At the same time Yerkes wrote to Waldeyer requesting reprints.
By the time Kohler's note arrived, the secretariat of the Academy had already
256
voted not to send them. Perhaps the Academy's action, and the tone of dis
appointed patriotism in Kohler's response, are understandable in light of the
general atmosphere of hostility between scientists on both sides, which per-

257
sisted for several years after the end of the war. However, when Yerkes
offered to resume correspondence in 1921, Kohler's reply was friendly. He
played an important role in reactivating contacts between German and American
256 Yerkes to Waldeyer, 28 October 1919; Kohler to Waldeyer, 9 December 1919;

Sitzungsprotokoll des Sekretariats, 11 December 1919, Akademie-Archiv,
II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 6 , Bl. 80, 95, 96.
257 On international relations among scientists during and after the First
World war, see Brigitte Schroder-Gudehaus, Deutsche Wissenschaft und
internationale Zusammenarbeit 1914-1918 (Geneva, 1966) and Les scienti-
fiques et la paix. La Communaute Scientifique internationale aux cours
des annees 20. (Montreal, 1978). See also Paul Forman, "Scientific In-
ternationalism and the Weimar Physicists: The Ideology and its Mani
pulation in Germany after World War I", Isis, 64 (1973), pp. 151-80,
and Daniel Kevles, "Into Hostile Camps: The Reorganization of Interna
tional Science in World War I", Isis, 62 (1971), pp. 47-60.
- 413 -
psychologists in the postwar years by sending Yerkes a list of active German

258
psychologists and their addresses.
e. Against Sophisticated Negativism: Experiments in Animal Perception
In the meantime, Kohler had published more than enough to convince
Yerkes or anyone else of his industry and skill. In addition to the monograph
on intelligence, published in 1917, he completed and published two experiment
al studies of animal perception, the results of which helped him to clarify
the theoretical significance of the earlier work. In the first study,
carried out from late 1914 to early 1915, Kohler tried to determine how the
visual perception of chimpanzees differed from that of man. To do this he
developed a number of ingenious variations on standard psychophysical experi
ments on space perception and size and color constancy, thus making the
apes, in a sense, into experimental subjects in the classic mold. He even
used the German term Versuchsperson in one place, without quotation marks.
In the first set of experiments, on monocular depth perception, the results
were as expected. Sultan, wearing a specially made pair of "goggles" that;
could block the vision of one eye, took far longer to fit two tubes together
monocularly than binocularly. This and other tests demonstrated that apes
259
make the same "depth error" in monocular vision as human beings do.
258 Yerkes to Kohler, 13 April 1921; Kohler to Yerkes, 19 May 1921, Yerkes
papers, folder 266.
259 Kohler, "Optische Untersuchungen am Schimpansen und am Haushuhn,"

Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., phys.-math. Kl., 1915,
No. 3, pp. 7 ff.
- 414 -
In the case of size constancy, however, the results were quite new.
Kohler trained two of the animals with food rewards to choose the larger of
two wooden boxes painted white and placed equidistant from them. He then
changed the position of the boxes so that in certain "critical" trials the
distant, larger surface produced a smaller retinal image than the nearer,
smaller one. In all but one of 120 trials, and in all of the sixty "critic
al" trials, the apes chose the objectively larger surface. He obtained
similar, though not so clear-cut results in tests of color constancy. This
time he used black and white papers placed on the box fronts. After being
trained to choose white over black papers in normal sunlight, the apes were
presented with black surfaces under strong and white surfaces under weaker
illumination,. In between, as a control and to prevent the development of
"set" (Einstellung) effects, Kohler presented "easy" trials with white papers
under strong illumination. Despite the large number of preliminary trials
-231 for Sultan and 603 for the more patient Grande - the apes continued
to make "mistakes", and the effect did not remain fixed for long. But the
results of the "critical" trials and those immediately following were clear
enough. If these animals did not possess color constancy, Kohler argued,
the expected results would be 100 per cent "wrong" choices. Instead the ani
mals chose "wrongly" only ten per cent of the time, a result far better than
chance. Kohler regarded it as conclusive precisely because of the "primitive"

260
lighting conditions involved.
The most surprising result of all, however, came in the final series,
using chickens instead of apes. Here Kohler explicitly stated that he was
260 Kohler, "Optische Hntersuchungen," pp. 36, 55 f., 56 n.
- 415 -
testing the role of "experience" in perception, the existence of which, he
said, presupposed a highly developed nervous system with greater adaptive
capability. He trained the chickens to peck at seeds lying above a glass
plate, below which were two papers of different shades of gray. Two animals
were trained to choose the lighter, and two the darker nuance. To do this
Kohler employed the rough but very effective technique of snatching away
the entire board, seeds, glass and all, when the chickens made a wrong choice.
As Thorndike would have predicted, the learning curves were flatter here
than those for the chimpanzees. Between 400 and 600 trials were required to
achive a basis for "critical" tests. In these there was no further train
ing; the chickens were allowed to peck whether the choice was "right" or
"wrong". The result was that of 100 "critical" trials, there were only four
"errors", and in seventy-two "easy" tests only five. Also impressive was
the "phenomenology" of choice, as Kohler called it. If the chicken's head
was first placed between the two papers, it seemed to be "pulled" in the "right"
direction. Apparently, he wrote, the transition to the constancies occurred

261
far lower on the evolutionary scale than previously thought. This was
evidently not the place to look to determine the difference between animal
and human vision.
Kohler concluded that such results challenged all theories "which
interpret the seeing of surface colors ... as the product of transformations
from more retinal vision, and ascribe primary influence in this process to
262
experience." Kohler did not mention any names, but he was clearly referring
261 Kohler, "Optische Untersuchungen," esp. pp. 59-60, 69-70.
262 Kohler, "Optische Untersuchungen," p. 69.
- 416 -
to David Katz's theory of color vision, presented four years before. Katz
reacted quickly to this challenge. In a review in the Zeitschrift fur Psycho-
logie he questioned whether the animals had really been trained to choose
the lighter or darker of two achromatic colors, or whether they had actual
ly learned to react to the difference in brightness between the grain and
the paper, which could remain constant under different illuminiation. Kohler
carried out additional experiments to exclude this possibility, which he

263
published the next year. His theoretical answer came in a more comprehen
sive paper completed in early 1917, but not published until 1918.
Even more than the work on intelligence, this paper was explicitly
constructed as a test of central assumptions in both comparative and general
psychology. In essence, Kohler proposed to determine whether the constancy
hypothesis he had attacked in 1913 held for animals of different levels of
development. Briefly formulated, the fundamental issue was this: "does the
effect of training [Dressur] remain bound to a single sensory process?"
Experiments conducted with Pavlovian methods seemed to show that this was
indeed the case, for animals could be trained to approach a light gray paper
and avoid a dark gray paper. Kohler acknowledged that the theory had a
certain amount of flexibility, for it was generally recognized that this ef
fect held within a certain range of nuances adjacent to the original pair,
known as the "zone of substitution." Actually, he admitted, here as in human
perception no one held the constancy hypothesis with complete strictness.
263 David Katz, review of Kohler, "Optische tTntersuchungen," Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 75 (1916), esp. pp. 386, 389-90; Kohler, "Die Farbe der
Sehdinge beim Schimpansenund beim Haushuhn," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie,
77 (1917), pp. 248-55.
- 417 -
More often the theoretical issue was not discussed, and the expression
"the animals choose" left vague, with no attempt to specify the functions
actually involved. Kohler therefore "constructed.the special theory of
absolute training as a starting point," in order "to develop a precise
question for research from this approximate and unclear notion."
If the principle were correct, he reasoned, then chickens that had
been trained to peck seeds from the lighter of two gray papers would choose
the paper they had been conditioned to choose, even when it was paired with
another paper that was much lighter or much darker than its original coun
terpart. Two choice situations might be used to test this prediction. Ex
pressed schematically, as in the diagram (Figure 14), animals trained to
choose paper 2 over the darker paper 3 could be offered a choice between
paper 1 and 2, so that the originally lighter paper appears as the darker;
or they could be offered a choice between papers 3 and 4, so that the original
ly darker paper appears as the lighter. Kohler thought that a genuinely strict
decision was best reached with the first test, for in the other case the re
sults remained open to the charge that the animals had merely chosen the "fa
miliar" paper 3 over the "unfamiliar" paper 4. In the first situation, the
choice of paper 1 would have to occur despite both the change in the rela
tional character of paper 2 and the tendency of the animals to prefer known
over unknown objects. If the animals nonetheless chose paper 1 over paper 2
264 Kohler, "Nachweis einfacher Strukturfunktionen beim Schimpansen und

beim Haushuhn. Uber eine neue Methode zur Untersuchung des bunten
Farbensystems," Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., phys.-
math. KL., 1918, Nr. 2; abr. trans. in Willis D. Ellis, Source Book
(cited above, n. 154), pp. 217-27. Citations to the original, here
pp. 3-4, 10, 33.
418
Crrfc. exper. Training Crrfc. exper.
White Z Black
1 2 3
Figure 14: Test schema for "structural functions"
Source: Adapted from Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," pp. 5, 7, 10.

Cf. Ellis, Source Book, pp. 218-19.
in such a test, Kohler argued, we would have decisive proof that the re
lation of the papers to one another - or the Zueinander, as he called it to
avoid the prejudicial term "relation" - had been decisive, and not the
265
absolute quality of one paper or the other.
After more than 1,000 preliminary, or "training" trials with the
chickens, Kohler offered them a mixture of "critical" trials, with the new
pairing, and "training" trials, with the original pairing. The results
were not as clear-cut as they had been in the earlier experiments on color
constancy, but their tendency was undeniable. Of a total of 100 "critical"
trials for one animal, 77 choices occurred according to the criterion of
"structure"; in the 120 "training" trials, the ratio was 113 to seven.
Kohler then proceededto experiments with apes, using the same box appara
tus as before, but with slightly larger papers. This time the ape indicated
its choice by striking the desired box with a stick, while the observer
265 Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," pp. 12-13.
- 419 -
watched through a peep-hole or from an unobtrusive hiding place. In cases
of uncertainty, there was no reaction from the observer until the ape "show
ed its true colors," as it were. Here Kohler gave results for only-one
animal, Chica. Of forty "critical" choices, thirty-seven were "structur-

266
al". After this, Kohler deemed it unnecessary to make further tests.
267
Yerkes later criticized him for this impatience. Kohler then added
nearly perfect results from similar experiments with his three year old son.
Most notable here, he thought, was the matter-of-fact character of the
child's choosing. For the child, he concluded, "the structure of the color
pair seems to be determinative to an extent no longer true for the adult."
Though it is true that adults can deal with more complicated and differen
tiated structures, Kohler thought is doubtful that they would "proceed

268
at once to choose with such naive assurance."
Finally, Kohler applied a similar procedure to tests with chroma
tic colors. The goal was to determine whether the animals can form "quali
ty series" of graduated nuances between the "outstanding points" of the
psychophysical spectrum. To do this he used a variant of the color wheel
which was the standard stimulus producer for such tests in humans. He af
fixed two papers to the wheel, one each of two primary colors, then ro
tated the wheel at a predetermined speed so that a single, intermediate
shade was seen. With this apparatus the succession of nuances could be
266 Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," pp. 19, 42-43.
267 Robert M. Yerkes & Ada W. Yerkes, The Great Apes; A Study of Anthro
poid Life (New Haven, 1929; reprint New York, 1970), esp. p. 334.
268 Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," p. 47.
- 420 -
exactly measured according to the portion of the wheel covered by each of
the two colors to be mixed. Kohler placed two wheels in boxes with
circular holes cut in them, so that they appeared to the apes as circular
versions of the colored papers with which they had already worked. Though
it took much larger intervals to achieve discrimination thresholds than was the
case with human subjects, the principle and the results were the same. In
the blue-red series, for example, Kohler constructed the situation so that
mixture B (composed of 270 blue and 90 red) would be chosen over mixture
D (100 blue and 260 red). He then presented B with another mixture, C
(2 0 0 blue and 160 red), then reversed the direction of choice by presenting
C with D. finally, he presented B with A, a pure blue. Each time the apes
chose the lighter mixture, even when it was objectively as dark as, or even
darker than, the originally darker mixture. Kohler obtained the same re
sults with a series of red-yellow mixtures, and noted, in addition, that
the animals retained the relational effects, but not the absolute connec
269
txons.
Kohler was not the first to address these issues experimentally.
In particular, a group of young American animal psychologists, including
John B. Watson, Walter S. Hunter, Karl S. Lashley and others, in addition
to Yerkes, had made important advances upon Thorndike's experimental tech
niques, publishing their results in the new Journal of Animal Behavior. Among
the problems they studied was that of "discrimination learning," as they
called it, including the perception of color and form. In one of these stu
dies, published in 1912, Lashley found that albino rats could be trained
269 Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," pp. 66 ff., 72, 88; cf. pp. 24, 100.
- 421 -
with food rewards to approach a circle forty millimeters in diameter and
avoid another circle of thirty millimeters; "but when both circles were
made larger than this standard the rats still chose the larger of the two
by comparison." This work started a debate as to whether animals could
actually discriminate forms, or whether they possessed "only a more or
less crude pattern vision," as Hunter m a i n t a i n e d . I n Yerkes' "multiple
choice" method, already described, "the solution of the problem depends
upon the perception of a certain constant relation among a series of ob
jects." In Germany, David Katz and Geza Revesz had found as early as 1907
that chickens could discriminate triangles and circles, and had trained them
271
to peck the second or third in a series of kernals.
By this time Kohler had received some of the American literature
from Yerkes and cited it in his study. As he wrote to Yerkes, some of the
differences were methodological. Kohler used nothing resembling a problem
box, working instead in the open air most of the time. More important
was that he did not employ punishment of any kind. Lashley and Yerkes,
too, noted that punishment did not seem to produce better results; but
Yerkes, at least, did not relinquish that method, deciding instead when an
270 Karl S. Lashley, "Visual Discrimination of Size and Form in the Albi
no Rat," Journal of Animal Behavior, 2 (1912), pp. 310-31, on p. 329;
Walter S. Hunter, *'The Question of Form-Perception," Journal of Animal
Behavior, 3 (1913), pp. 329-33, on p. 330. For a detailed methodolo
gical discussion, see Robert M. Yerkes and John B. Watson, "Methods
of Studying Vision in Animals," Behavior Monographs, vol. 1, Nr. 2
(Cambridge & Boston, 1911).
271 Yerkes, "Mental Life," p. 10; David Katz & Geza Revesz, "Experimental-
psychologische Untersuchungen mit Huhnern," Zeitschrift fur Psycholo
gie, 50 (1909), pp. 93-116, esp. pp. 104, 106.
- 422 -
experiment did not work that the punishment had not been severe enough.
272
As Kohler put it, his animals were "uninfluenced". Because they were
rewarded whether their choices were correct or not, he thought, any tenden
cy that their choices showed would be an indication of what, or how, they
really see.
But what, precisely, did they see, and how? Apparently there were
two kinds of learning, KShler suggested, "absolute" and "relational". But
what is actually going on in "relational" learning? In a way, all Kohler
had really done was to show that the principle that all psychophysical
experimentation with difference thresholds is based on judgments of compari
son also applied to infrahuman animals. Yet precisely this posed a diffi
cult problem, for no one was prepared to attribute "judgments" to chickens.
To avoid such anthropomorphism, Kohler spoke here of "structural functions."
The way for the use of this term had already been prepared by Carl Stumpf
with his own concept of psychical functions and his recognition of "immanent
structure." Kohler's term was an extension of this terminology to his re
sults. The psychology of these functions is not so well developed as that
of sensations, Kohler noted. In human psychology, at least, it was customary
to distinguish between the perception of forms and that of relations of the
kind just described. However, he claimed, that issue was not yet decided.
Here he referred for the first time to Koffka's polemic against Benussi;
but he took a cautious stance on it at first. Fortunately, he said, such
distinctions are not so important in animal psychology; we may -therefore use
272 Lashley, "Visual Discrimination," p. 312; Yerkes, "Mental Life," pp. 64-
65. Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," p. 32. Cf. Kohler to Yerkes, 17
March 1917, Yerkes papers, folder 29.
- 423 -
the term "simple structural functions" for both forms and relations, as
273
Koffka did.
This note of caution was more apparent than real; for Kohler then
proceeded to equate form and relation perception in terms that went far be
yond animal psychology. In both cases, he asserted, colors acquire "an in
ner connection," not a merely external, associative linkage. The character
of that connection corresponds to "their mutual position in the given
system," whether this was a colored body or a series of color nuances.
Here Kohler approvingly cited Otto Selz's refutation of "constellation
theory", already discussed above. However, he did not accept Selzs alter
native explanation of the way wholes and relations are experienced. Nor
did he adopt the notion, recently presented by Hans Volkelt, a coworker
of Felix Krueger, that animal consciousness was a "totality" (Ganzheit),
in which complexes take effect "as wholes" in some unspecified way. In
stead he argued that "the whole reproduces on the basis of its specific
structure.
* * " 2 7 4
Applied to his experiments, this would mean that the functional
relation "lighter than," once learned,had an independent psychological reali
ty of its own. Though Kohler attributed this view to Christian von Ehren-
fels, it was actually a direct application of the psychological ontology
that Wertheimer had expounded in 1913, with one significant change of ter
minology. Instead of referring to a hierarchy of functional relations
organized around a "center," as Wertheimer did, Kohler spoke of "systems."
274 Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," pp. 37-38, 39, 37, n. 1. Cf. Hans

Volkelt, tiber die Vorstellungen der Tiere (Leipzig, 1914).
- 424 -
This language, and Kohlers rapid shift from animal to human psychology,
were hints of much more general implications to come. The existence of
"structural functions" in animals also raised important physiological is
sues. Evidently the deficiencies in neurophysiological theory which
had been exposed by Johannes von Kries and Erich Becher did not apply only
to human perception. However, Kohler reserved discussion of these questions

275
for "another work," which was in fact already nearing completion.
More significant here, and more explicit, were the implications
Kohler drew from his findings for the socially significant paradigm of
sophisticated negativism in comparative psychology. He took care, as before,
to protect himself in advance against any charge of "humanizing" the animals.
The difference between human beings, and lower animals, both in the degree of
their dependence on structure and in the firmness and span of its retention,
was clear. This was shown especially by the amount of time and effort the
animals required to deal with these relationships. But there was no reason
to suppose that there was a fixed boundary at which "simple sensations"
end and structural perception begins, or to suppose at all that "sensa
tions" are "the primitive components of consciousness." In fact, Kohler
suggested, it is quite possible that "the simplest kinds of structural func
tion proceed from elementary characteristics of the nervous system, or of
living substance, at least as well and as clearly as the simplest absolute
excitations." This claim he took directly from Siegfried Becher, as quoted
by Koffka in his attack on Benussi. If this supposition is correct, Koh
ler concluded, then there are "good reasons" why neurologists and physiolo-
275' Kohler, "Strukturfunktionen," p. 55.
- 425 -
gists like Sherrington have been making greater efforts recently to under-
276
stand "the 'integrative form of reaction'" in organisms.
Kohler clearly had no wish to undermine evolutionary theory or
corresponding attempts to construct a "developmental history" of the various
species; this term appears frequently throughout the study. He asserted,
however, that such attempts were "worthless" if they were based on the old
sensation concept, i.e., on the constancy hypothesis. In addition to his
own results with chickens, the examples Ludwig Edinger provided of the
reactions of frogs and lizards to "Gestalt stimuli" showed that "only a
portion, and hardly the essential portion of the reactions of even the
lowest organisms can be understood as the mere juxtaposition [Hebenein-
ander] and succession [Nacheinander] of absolute stimulus influences in iso-

277
lation." What Kohler attacked, then, was not evolutionary theory or
developmental history, but the idea that such histories could be construct
ed on the basis of assumptions drawn from sensationalist epistemology and
associationist psychology.
Having taken this position, Kohler could and did equate "the un
fortunate law of economy," meaning Lloyd Morgan's principle of parsimony,
with the "constancy hypothesis" he had criticized in 1913. The two were
in fact intimately related. Both functioned not as working hypotheses
subject to test, but as rules of procedure with regulatory power over the
existence or nonexistence of observable data. He called the injunction to
explain animal behavior on the basis of the simplest and lowest functions
- 426 -
possible "a dangerous demand":
Who says in the present state of animal psychology with what

kind of function we have supposed too much of an animal - which
is the simpler and lower function in a given case? ... when a
science is still as young as animal psychology, it is a good
idea to discover neither the 'highest nor the lowest possible
functions in a behavior, but always the ones which one sees ex
pressed in it first with the best possible observations ....
If one wishes to economize, then one must first know the value
of the different kinds of m o n e y . 278
In effect, Kohler had employed the same practical argument against Lloyd
Morgans canon as he had against the constancy hypothesis, and made the
same plea for freedom of observation. In the process he turned the coun
sel of caution originally used to separate scientists from amateurs against
its proponents, saying that precisely that piece of advice stood in the
way of science.
Thus, here again Kohler argued for his results, or their admissi
bility, on purely practical, scientific grounds, while carefully protecting
himself against possible charges of amateurish enthusiasm. Yet here, too,
as in his 1913 reference to "the joy of observing," or his 1917 assertion
that mechanized, habitual behavior is "ugly", aesthetic values lay not far
below the pragmatic surface. His experiments, he said, had not shown the
existence of "grouping" or of other "higher" processes, in chickens, but
rather "that the response to stimuli has somewhat richer forms every
where." In this sense, these results represent _"a gain in status" even
for the lower forms of life:
278 Kohler, Strukturfunktionen," pp. 4041. The motif of psychology

as a "young science" needing to grow without dogmatic hindrances
reappeared frequently in Kohler'slater writings. Cf., e.g. Gestalt
Psychology, chap. 2.
- 427 -
At least one must say that the possiblities for such animals of
adapting their behavior to the environment are not so poor and
monotonous as would certainly be necessary without any structural
effects. And where up to now, in order to satisfy the unfortunate
principle of economy a reaction could not be explained woodenly
enough, we now have the right and the duty to view nature as
somewhat richer- and more colorful. One can have the greatest
interest in exact procedure in research and also be pleased with
a result of this kind.279
f. The End of the Station
Clearly, Kohler had managed to carry on with science under difficult
conditions. As the war went on, however, the difficulties of maintaining
a research outpost like this one began to mount. The stations actual
operating expenses increased steadily, from 10,149 Spanish pesetas in 1914
to 16,322 in 1918 and 19,202 in 1919. Inflation on the islands was exacerbat
ed by inflation in Germany, as the value of the mark versus the peseta de
clined by a factor of eight from 1914 to 1920. The decline was only half as
great as that of the mark versus the dollar in the same period, but it still
put an increasing strain on the Samson foundation's finances. By 1918 the
cost in 1914 marks of running the station had tripled, while the founda
tion's cash income had increased roughly 1.8 times. The station's budget,
including salaries, now totalled 31,200 marks, approximately three-fifths

280
of the foundation's income. In addition to these problems and the dif-
280 These figures have been calculated from the financial statements of
the station submitted by Kohler, and from the reports of the Samson
foundation, in Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 13, Bl. 81, pp. 126
28, 160-63, 199-200, 248-50, Bnd. 6, Bl. 4, pp. 23 ff. For the de
cline in the value of the mark versus the dollar, see Gustav Stolper,
- 428 -
ficulties of communication, already described, Kohler and his wife 'became
victims of the climate" shortly before the end of 1917, and moved to another
part of the island for several months to recover. Then, in November of
1918, just as the war ended, the land on which the station stood was
sold to an English firm, and the station had to be moved. This brought
further expenses. However, the foundation was able to carry the financial
burdens, and Kohler, now fully recovered, wrote to Stumpf in May of 1919
281
full of plans for the future.
But the complete collapse of the mark in the summer and fall of 1919
made continuation impossible. As Kohler wrote to Waldeyer, "the station is

282
doing well, it is all right scientifically also, only it has no money."
A bank loan was arranged for the interim, while various alternatives were
considered, including a sharing arrangement with the Dutch academy of science
or takeover by a private foundation; but negotiations dragged on with no
solution. In April, 1920, Kohler wrote to Stumpf questioning the virtue
of "throwing away" 16,000 to 20,000 marks per month, when "so many institutes
in Germany can hardly continue to exist with a yearly budget of approximately
The German Economy 18701940 (New York, 1940), p. 83, quoted in Gor
don A. Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (New York, 1980), p. 450.
281 Kohler to Waldeyer, 2 August 1918, 15 August 1918 and 6 December 1918,
Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 12, unpaginated. Kohler to Stumpf,
9 May 1919, Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 12, Bl. 4.
282 Kohler to Waldeyer, 18 October 1919, Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 6,

Bl. 72.
- 429 -
3,000 marks." He pressed for a solution soon. Renewed illness was forc
ing him to leave, and on the island his departure would be seen as "the
beginning of the collapse ... again a part of Germany's reputation is at

283
stake." Despite the express wish of Prussian ministry officials to
keep the station alive, all attempts proved fruitless. Kohler returned
to Germany at the end of May, before the final decision to close was made.
After his return he arranged to have the apes sold to the Berlin zoo.
They arrived in October, one month after Waldeyer resigned the directorship
of the Samson foundation because of failing health. He died soon after.
The apes survived a while: . longer, providing material for more observa-
284
tions, including an extensive description of a chimpanzee birth. But
within a few years they, too, had succumbed, perhaps because of the change
in climate.
It was a sad end to an important chapter in the history of science.
The board of the Samson foundation showed its appreciation of Kohler's work
by granting him a salary of 20,000 marks quarterly until he could secure
a position. At the meeting at which this was decided, Stumpf remarked that
285
there was hope that Kohler would find "a state position in the near future.
However, the meaning of this cryptic remark only became clear two years later.
283 Kohler to Stumpf, 26 April 1920, Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 6,

Bl. 151. The details of the station's final months, and of the sale
of the apes, are in Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 6, Bl. 92, pp.
112 ff., 121, 123, 153 ff., 192 ff. Cf. the report in Sitzungsber.
der Berliner Akad. der Wiss., 1921, 1, p. 166.
284 Johannes von Allesch, "Obex die drei ersten Lebensmonate eines Schimpan-
sen," Sitzungsber. der Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., 1921, 2, pp. 672-85.
285 Minutes of the board meetings of the Samson foundation, 19 February 1920
and 4 November 1920, Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIz, Bnd. 6, Bl. 133, p. 251.
- 430 -
5. The Step to Natural Philosophy; 'Die Physischen Gestalten1
The Samson foundation was generous to Kohler in another way, by pay
ing for the publication of another work, written on Tenerife but not direct
ly concerned with anthropoids. This was Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe
und im stationaren Zustand, "Physical Gestalten at Pest and in the Stationary

286
State". The book had a long gestation period. Kohler began ordering
literature on physics, physical chemistry and mathematics for physicists
in the autumn of 1915. He wrote to Waldeyer in November of 1917 about "a

287
larger work which will be sent to you around Christmas." But he did .
not complete the book until eighteen months later. In a letter to Stumpf
in May of 1919, he explained why:
The work in natural philosophy about which you ask was sent off to
day. Allow me a few remarks about its creation. The first thoughts
about it came to me in the spring of 1915. However, after I saw
that little could be accomplished in a brief period or without ex
tensive preliminary work in physics, I decided that it was my duty
to remain true to my anthropoid assignment, and therefore worked
through the intelligence tests and the paper on structural func
tions. But after that (in the summer of 1917), I believed I could
return to the larger and more general task for the sake of the issue
[die Sache] and for my own sake, even if that meant paying less atten
tion to the apes fora while. Unfortunately, first my own fatal [sic!]
illness, then the illnesses of my wife and children, the simultaneous
departure from the old and the founding of the new station, and be
yond this the difficulty of the task itself, have delayed its com
pletion for so long.288
286 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationaren Zustand

(Braunschweig, 1920), 2nd ed. (Erlangen, 1924); abr. trans. entitled
"Physical Gestalten," in Ellis, Source Book, pp. 17-54. Citations to
the second edition, which is a reprint of the first.
287 Kohler to Waldeyer, 10 November 1917, Akademie-Archiv, II: XIIIZ, Bnd.

12, unpaginated.
288 Kohler to Stumpf, 9 May 1919, Akademie-Archiv, ibid.
- 431 -
a. The Identity and Aim of the Work
Kohler submitted the book to the Prussian Academy, as his contract
required; but he doubted that it would be accepted for publication in one
of the Academys series, since its treatment of physical and mathematical
issues was "too broad and elementary." In 1917 he had requested that it be
submitted to Max Planck or Walther Nerast for an opinion, since "the content
falls outside the zone of competence of the psychologist but not within
that of the neurophysiologist and physiologist." Actually, the terrain it
marked out lay not only between these disciplines, but also, and primarily
between philosophy and physics; in the subtitle he calledit "an investigation
in natural philosophy." As he wrote to his mentor Stumpf, to whom he de
dicated the book: "I would be sorryif the philosophical content in its
close interconnection with physics were to be uncomfortable to them [Nemst,
Planck or Einstein]; for it is the mainpoint for us, and I would like to
ask you to defend its right to existalongside the purely physical view-
289
point, should this be necessary." Given what we have seen of Plancks
philosophical viewpoint, we may assume that such a defense was not required.
With these remarks, however, Kohler made both his own disciplinary stand
point and the identity of his expected reading public clear.
Kohler remarked to Stumpf that he had kept the presentation "largely
independent of the anthropoid research," because "the consequences go far
beyond questions of animal psychology." However, he had not kept the pre
sentation of his anthropoid work independent of physics. It would have been
surprising if he had, since he was evidently thinking about these larger is-
289 Kohler to Waldeyer, as cited, n. 286; Kohler to Stumpf, as cited,

n. 287. Emphasis mine.
- 432 -
sues, perhaps even preparing the book in his mind, as he wrote the other mo
nographs. Allusions to physics appear throughout the essay on "intelligence
tests." He noted, for example, that "many animals run terrified directly
in front of an automobile as though they were following lines of force,

* 290
when a slight swerve to the right or the left would save them. That
he intended to do far more than invoke metaphors in such passages became
clear in his remarks about the problem of chance. In his critique of Thorn
dike, he argued that to satisfy a "genuine" - that is, a physically and ma
thematically precise - concept of chance, the animals* actions would have
to be "completely incoherent," in the way that physicists understand the
term. There should be "no essential difference," he maintained, whether we
speak of the Brownian motion of gas molecules in an enclosed chamber or "the

291
so-called chance impulses of a chimpanzee." It was this conception of
chance that had led Kohler to place such high demands on Thorndike's model
in his "critical test" of it.
Kohler conceded that no one actually thought of adhering to such a
concept. Even Darwinists like Thorndike smuggled in non-chance aspects by
speaking of "instinctive impulses, which are supposed to supply the other
wise missing directedness and coherence to observed behavior. Yet the na
ture of "instinct" is left unexplained. Philosophers like Eduard von Hart
mann and Henri Bergson had also expressed dissatisfaction with "Darwinian
chance," Kohler noted. Their answer was to invoke "the unconscious" orthe
elan vital. He made it unmistakably clear that "the only connection thatthis
290 Kohler, Mentality, p. 82, n. 2; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 65, n. 1.
- 433 -
book has with such, a line of thought is that here, too, a theory of chance
is rejected ... the alternative is not at all between chance and factors
outside of experience," he asserted. "Great parts of physics have nothing
to do with chance .... It seems particularly surprising from the standpoint
of physics that one should continually insist on speaking here of 'either-

292
or*, when after all there are quite other possibilities." With this re
mark Kohler had joined the issue in advance. Here he has talking not about
practical scientific strategies, but about world-views. More exactly, he
had invoked the "possibilities" of developing a scientific philosophy with
out the limitations of mechanism or the multiple ontology of interactionism.
These "possibilities" were actually reducible to one - that there
are "physical Gestalten," the laws of which correspond to those of behavior
and of psychological experience. Both the way Kohler tried to establish this
claim and the reasons he presented for making it at all were as unusual as
the assertion itself. We will begin with the latter. Kohler wrote two
introductions to his book, one for "biologists and philosophers," and a se
cond one for physicists. In the first of these, the starting point was the
issue just presented. The increasing use of the Gestalt category in psycho
logy since its introduction by Ehrenfels posed a serious problem, the incom
mensurability of psychological categories with those of natural science.
Here, however, Kohler confessed to a sense of insecurity in dealing with
these concepts:
Even those who are already accustomed to working with the concept of
Gestalten as something completely real psychologically notice at times
292 Kohler, Mentality, pp. 188-89; Intelligenzprufungen, p. 153. Emphasis

in the original in the first two cases; emphasis mine in the last.
- 434 -
a slight inhibition in this practice, which is characteristic of asso

ciation with entities that are merely empirically and not yet theoreti
cally legitimated .... It is undoubtedly not exactly natural for man
to make a science of consciousness and psychological events. One even
feels unsure of his own observation in this field; and so when he
finds something unusual,. he turns gladly to the sciences of the ex
ternal world ... where the ground has been secure for a long time,
to find a control or at least analogical confirmation.293
This was a rather different use, almost a reversal, of the motif of psychology
as a "young science" whichKohler had employed in his 1913 and 1918 papers.
There he had used it to support his call for "trust in observation" against
constraints imposed by a scientific ideal taken at least partly from physics.
Here the insecurity of youth became a motive for turning to just that science
for aid. Should such "theoretical legitimation" not be forthcoming, then
psychologists would have to depend on their observations alone, and may thus
have to accept "the unsatisfying idea ... that experience is not in itself a
294
closed system, that precisely here a gap yawns."
Some philosophers would prefer precisely this outcome, Kohler acknow
ledged. They point to Gestalten as evidence of the "creative power of soul"
(Seele) to bring forth something new beyond the products of mechanical nature.
Others hold to the categories of "reason" and resist anything that challenges
their validity. For them, the term "Gestalt" is "a misinterpretation of un
certain empirical results," probably "a fashion" like others that had occurred
before in psychology. This was a carefully veiled reference to the logically-
rooted vocabulary of Brentano and his students, including Stumpf. The vita-
lists, for their part, cite "formed behavior as the essentially determining
element of the organic." However, they end their search for similar order in
293 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. xi.
294 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. x.
- 435 -
the physical realm too soon, after finding only "vague analogies to cnrystais
or chemical compounds. Their mistake, he suggested, was to pose the issue
too generally. "Much sharper guidelines are required; we must approach
physics with much more exact questions," if we are to discover Gestalten

295
there.
The hypothesis that Max Wertheimer had presented in 1912 and Kurt Koffka
had expanded in 1915 offered an opportunity to do just this, Kohler argued.
For it assigned "a higher degree of reality" to Gestalten than had previously
been the case, and claimed at the same time that these were correlated with
"structured whole processes" in the brain. If this hypothesis is correct, then
two complementary implications follow. First, "if there are physical Gestal
ten, then the hope is justified of understanding central physiological proces
ses of Gestalt character as special cases of these." On the other hand, how
ever, "every concrete case in which Gestalten are experienced and therefore,
according to Wertheimer and Koffka*s postulates, are accompanied by physical
Gestalt correlates, is a specific indication of ... where one might look in
physics for Gestalten." In this situation, he argued, it is not important
whether all .of physics contains Gestalten; "even one example" will be suffi-
296
cient. The task, therefore, must be "to learn to see them in physics.
As we shall see, Kohler's use of the words "look for" and "see" in this con
text was not accidental.
Kohler carried the pedagogical metaphor into his "introduction for
physicists" as well. In natural science, he said there, it has become a mat-
295 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. x-xi, xiii-xiv.
296 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. xv.
- 436 -
ter of course to treat states independent of time as the results of pro
cesses tending toward minimum energy displacement and maximum entropy.
Psychologists, however, continue to believe that physical systems are mere
"mosaics" of elements. This erroneous view of natural science has stood
in the way of progress in psychological theory. "Even Helmholtz" held it,
and its correctness for a limited range of events had given it great autho
rity in psychophysics for a long time. However, as soon as psychologists
began to make greater demands on the theory, its weaknesses became every
where apparent. Nonetheless, he claimed, psychologists had retained this
view because they believed that natural scientific exactitude required that
they do so, and because they were not familiar with the more modern style of
physical thinking. Once this familiarity had been achieved, Kohler assert
ed, it would become clear that the behavior of optical Gestalten at rest
"requires no more for its explanation than the ascription of characteristics
of a physical system to the optic sector of the nervous system." Applied
in this way, the physiological hypothesis set up by Wertheimer and Koffka
would represent "only the transition to a properly physical view of nervous

* ..297
events.
b. The Ehrenfels Criteria and Physics
Actually,the pedagogical task was not so simple as Kohler presented
it here, nor did it run only from physics to psychology. As he had hinted
in his reference to "concrete cases in which Gestalten are experienced," the
297 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. xx.
- 437 -
categories with which he proposed "to look for Gestalten in physics" were
not physical at all, but psychological. Kohler called them the "Ehrenfels
criteria". For the first of these the designation was appropriate enough.
This was the criterion of "suprasummativity" (tibersummativitat) . According
to it, the term Gestalt applies to "those psychical states and processes, the
characteristic qualities and effects of which cannot be derived from the si
milarly constituted [artgleiche] qualities and effects of their so-called
'parts ". This criterion, Kohler maintained, is "necessary but not suf
ficient," for it seems to require only the addition of "Gestalt qualities" to
the sensations fixed by individual stimulus components. This would "strong
ly reduce the radical meaning [Sinn] and, I believe, the essential value
of the new category. The criterion requires too little of its objects."
It should be supplemented by what Kohler called "functional nearness," the
requirement that stimuli or component parts be so situated as to be able to
influence one another reciprocally. Needed in addition, Kohler thought,
was a second Ehrenfels criterion, "transposability" (Transponierbarkeit), the
retention of relations in the same order despite shifts in the parts. Taken
alone, this "requires perhaps too much" of its objects, for there are Gestal
ten to which it does not apply. It is "a sufficient, but not necessary"
condition for demonstrating the independence of a Gestalt from its parts, as

. 298
such.
Actually, these were not strictly Ehrenfels' criteria, but Kohler's
significantly altered version of Ehrenfels* position. As we have shown, Ehren
fels used the second criterion, transposability, to prove the first. In this
298 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 37-38; cf. p. ix.
- 438 -
sense, then, the one was inferior to the other. Kohler separated the cri-
299
teria and gave them equal standing. Far more important, however, was
that he dropped the idea of "Gestalt qualities" as something additional given
on and with each of the elements or parts of an entity. At the same time,
he accepted Ehrenfels' wide application of the concept not only to melo
dies and their tones, but to relations in general and their members, and
even to the "sense" (Sinn) of a sentence and its component words. This shift
presupposes the epistemological perspective Wertheimer had presented in 1913,
in particular the idea of "predetermination" or "centering", which meant, trans
lated into Kohler's terms, that the parts receive their meaning from the
characteristics of the whole. Accordingly, Kohler did not speak of entities
that "have" Gestalt qualities, but of Gestalten. Thus, while retaining its
rootedness in psychological.reality, Kohler transformed Ehrenfels' position
so as to make it applicable beyond that level.
The effects of this transformation became still clearer in Kohler's
treatment of the category "sum". He used the term primarily to refer to
collections of "similarly constituted" (artgleiche) characteristics, en
tities or components joined by what he called "and-connections" (Und-Ver-
bindungen), borrowing a term from Wertheimer. This meant that a grouping or
collection (Zusammen) may be called "summative" only when its parts or
pieces can be removed or changed with no change either in the whole or in
the other parts or pieces. For example, when six coins are placed on a
299 Alois Hofler was the first to introduce transposability as an indepen

dent Gestalt criterion. See Hofler, Psychology(Vienna, 1897), p. 152.-
cf. Herrmann, "Ganzheitspsychologie und Gestalttheorie" (cited in part
two, n. 60), p. 609, and Martin Scheerer, Die Lehre von der Gestalt
(Hamburg, 1931), p. 41.
- 439 -
table in the form of a hexagon, and three of them then removed, Kohler
maintained that neither the position nor the arrangement of the other three
changes. Three stones, one in Australia, one in Africa and one in the United
States, can he said to he a group in the formal sense; hut the displacement
of one stone leads to no noticeable displacement of the others, or to any
change in their relation to one another. This would also be true, Kohler
claimed, if the stones were one meter apart. Against the probahle objection
that he had made this criterion so rigid in order to make it easy to dis
cover suprasummative entities in physics, Kohler replied that, on the contra
ry, physics contains numerous "pure sums" of just this kind. The concept
applies not only to arithmetical sums, but also to the scalar and vector
sums commonly used in mechanics. In this sense, he acknowledged, sums play
"a dominant role in physics.
From a logical point of view, these criteria raised numerous questions.
The term "part", for example, remained ambiguous. Kohler recognized this,
but said that a comprehensive logical treatment of these issues would be
"far too much effort," and was in any case unnecessary for the task at hand.
"Gestalt theory requires ... at first only that entities of the kind required
have more characteristics than would proceed from the similarly constituted
characteristics of their so-called parts. If leaves the exact determination
of the concept part* open." This rough-and-ready attitude toward logical
analysis corresponded to Kohler's open disdain for formalistic approaches to
philosophy in general. Most systematic philosophers today apparently prefer
to clarify fundamental concepts "from the outside and far removed" from
300 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 42, 44, 47.
- 440 -
experience, he wrote. Kohler proposed instead to apply his criteria not
to "the physical" as such, hut to physical systems as they appear to the
physicist "from close up."^* Half the book is taken up with such applica
tions. Since the form of proof was nearly the same in every case, we can
limit ourselves to a few examples here.
The example with which Kohler began came from physical chemistry.
Since the work of Nernst and others, Kohler noted, it has become customary
to think of current flow in the nervous system as the transfer of ions in
dilute solutions. When two solutions of different ionic concentration enter
into osmotic communication, they affect one another by diffusion - that is,
the osmotic pressures of the two solutions equalize as ions migrate across
the boundary between them. The result, according to Nernst, is a "leap" of
potential (Potentialsprung) along the entire boundary, which produces a
measurable amount of electricity corresponding to the original potential
difference between the two solutions. Thus, for example, the value of the
"potential leap" between a solution containing .1 mole of hydrochloric acid
per liter of water and one containing .01 mole per liter is 0.038 volts.
In a sense, Kohler conceded, such systems can be said to be "sums" of two
parts, the solutions. The total weight of two electrolytes is the sum of
the two weighed separately; moreover, the amount of electricity generated

302
equals the difference between the two potentials.
However, the potential leap itself is not a result of algebraic addi
tion or subtraction of the two solutions taken separately; it occurs only when
301 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 32, 34.
302 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 15 ff., 37.
- 441 -
they come into physical contact. "This is indeed the opposite of the deter
mination of system characteristics [Systemeigeaschaften] from similarly consti
tuted characteristics of the parts, Kohler maintained. A system of this
kind is "an internal unity" precisely because its parts are determined by
"the material nature of the whole". They therefore satisfy the first Ehren
fels criterion, for the system "has more characteristics" than its parts
taken separately. They also satisfy the second Ehrenfels criterion, because
the effect does not depend on the absolute values involved. Taking the example
given above, when the concentrations of hydrochloric acid in the two solutions
are halved, potential leaps still occur according to* the laws worked out by
Nernst. What is constant here, he remarked, is the same as what is constant

303
in psychology - the "proportions", or mutual relations among the "elements."
However, a collection of such systems taken together remains an alge
braic sum; there is no mutual influence between one system and another. We
must therefore look further for physical Gestalten. Kohler found what he
was searching for in the field of electrostatics. Consider a well-insulated
electrical conductor of arbitrary shape, e.g., an ellipsoid. Electric charges
brought successively to the conductor will immediately distribute themselves
over its surface so that the electric potential is the same throughout. But
the density of the charge will not be uniform at all points of the surface.
In an ellipsoidal conductor the density will be greatest at points of greatest
curvature and smallest at points of least curvature. Thus the distribution
has a definite pattern of organization that depends on the shape of the con
ductor but is independent of the materials of which it is constructed, or of
303 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 30-31, 38-39.
- 442 -
the total quantity of charge placed on it. Kohler called this the dependence
of the system's organization upon its "topography", and the structure assumed
by the system under the given conditions its "natural structure." He sub
sequently added that the electromagnetic fields which accompany such distri
butions of charged particles also belong to their "topography", and demonstrat-

304
ed that these, too, fulfil the Ehrenfels criteria.
Most important is that it is impossible to build up such structures bit
by bit, e.g., by feeding charged particles first to one part of the conductor
and then to another; instead the charge immediately redistributes itself over
the entire surface. As Kohler put it, "The natural structure' assumed by the
total charge is not described if one says: at this point the charge-density
is this much, 'and' at that point the charge-density is that much ... the
occurrence of a certain density at one point determines the densities at all

305
other points." In the case of the electrolytes, the system is an emergent;
the "parts" can still exist for themselves. Here, Kohler argued, the mutual
dependence among the "parts" is so great that no displacement or change of
state can occur without influencing all the other "parts" of the system.
This kind of distribution is very different from that of physical ob
jects en gros. To characterize the difference Kohler wrote that "strong" Ge
stalten, as he called them, actually do not have "parts" at all, but only what
he called interacting "moments of structure" that "carry" (sich tragen) one
another. Here he took up a concept Husserl had used in the discussion of
wholes and parts in his Logical Investigations. However, Kohler was obviously
304 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 55 ff., 76 ff. Thetranslation

"natural structure is in Ellis, Source Book,p. 28.
305 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. 58.
- 443 -
referring to real physical processes, not to "moments of intuition." He
specifically contrasted this usage with the "foundation" concept also used
by Husserl and customary among Brentano's students, especially Meinong.
It makes no sense, he maintained, either here or in the example of the
electrolytes, to speak of such wholes as being "built up" upon static parts,
as we can of geometric figures. "The moments of a structure, unlike the
items of a geometrical grouping, and not logically prior to the total struc
ture," and "a physical structure upon a given topography is not logically
secondary relative to its moments
The distribution of charge on a conductor is a "strong" Gestalt in a
state of rest. Kohler also showed that stationary electric currents, heat
currents and all phenomena of flow also fulfill the Ehrenfels criteria. In
addition to these, he distinguished what he called "weak" Gestalten, which
are not "immediately dependent upon form" or topography. An example is a
group of isolated conductors connected by fine wires. When current is in
troduced and a uniform potential is reached, the system is in a stationary
state. Here, too, the "natural structures" for each of the conductors are
in principle dependent on conditions in the system as a whole; but their
specific articulation is not influenced by events in remote parts of the
system. The mathematics for such systems is summative, according to Kohlers
own definition. Because there is a finite number of "regions" in the
system, it is possible to leave the connecting wires out of account and compute
the linear algebraic functions for the potential in each of them. Nonethe
less, the system is a Gestalt. The parts "carry one another, in the sense
306 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 60 f., 168. Emphasis in the
original.
- 444 -
that a shift in the current input produces a change in the whole system.
However, so long as the change is proportional relative to the increase or
decrease in current flow, the structure of the system remains unchanged.
Hence both Ehrenfels criteria are satisfied.
Perhaps the most important problem in dealing with "strong" Gestalten,
Kohler noted, is that we cannot "experience" them in the conventional sense,
because they are destroyed or radically altered on contact with measuring in
struments. Such structures have therefore "all but disappeared from ex
perimental physics." This made their pervasiveness in theoretical physics
all the more impressive. Whereas "weak" Gestalten are satisfactorily treated
with simultaneous linear algebraic functions, as we have seen, "strong" Ge
stalten can be described either with integrals or with series of partial dif
ferential equations, especially the equation of Laplace, the simplified or
of which is AV = 0. This, as Kohler pointed out, was the method preferred
by Maxwell. Since a method of solving integrals can be derived from the
solution of linear algebraic functions, and integrals are also applicable
everywhere that the Laplace equation applies, the "inner unity" in the theo-
308
retical treatment of "strong" and "weak" Gestalten is really "complete."
Kohler had thus demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the systemshe had
defined as Gestalten are as accessible to measurement as anything physical.
In fact, they almost demand mathematical treatment, because they cannot be
dealt with in any other way.
307 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 69, 106-09.
308 KShler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 83, 113, 116 ff. Cf. Maxwell,
Treatise (cited in part two, n. 165), vol. I, p. 143.
- 445 -
As we have shown, Ludwig Boltzmann had argued in his reply to Mach
that the use of differential equations meant postulating the existence
of atoms. In his Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics, Max Planck had at
tempted to reconcile this view with the idea that "there exist no countable
elements in completely continuous entities" such as electromagnetic fields
The result was his two-level view of physical reality, dominated at the
309
micro level by corpuscles and at the macro level by continua. Kohler did
not deny the existence of atoms,nor did he find recent developments like the
electron theory at all incompatible with the concept of continuously structur
ed fields. In fact, it was Lorentz's view of charge and field as two "sides"
of a single entity that had encouraged him to think of current and conductor
as two "sides" of a total physical "topography". However, he emphasized the con
tinuity side of this complementarity, and gave it an ontological gloss. The
Laplace equation, he pointed out, is commonplace in many other areas of
physics in addition to the ones already described. "One must suppose that
this single, constantly returning equation determines something common to
them all physically, despite the extreme difference in material." Thus
"temporally constant, continuously extended total entities [Gesamtgebilde]

310
axe present in - it seems - nearly the whole of physics.
The Ehrenfels criteria, and their application to physics, have since
been strongly criticized by analytically oriented philosophers. Ernest Nagel,
for example, has alleged that, like most holistic thinking, Kohlers "Ehren
fels criteria" are ambiguous. He gives eight different definitions of
309 Planck, Eight Lectures (cited in part two, n. 167), p. 45.
310 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 72, 75-76, 121.
- 446
the proposition "the whole is more than the sum of its parts." His most
important argument in this context, however, is that Kohler's cases of physic
al Gestalten are not evidence against analysis into parts. He concedes that
"the occurrence of systems possessing distinctive structures of interdepen
dent parts is undeniable." But "whether a system can be overtly constructed
in a piece-meal fashion by a seriatim juxtaposition of parts" and "whether
the system can be analysed in terms of a theory concerning its assumed con
stituents and their interrelations" are two different issues. True, an elec
tromagnetic field cannot be regarded as a sum of particles, or even of "par
tial" fields, each directly related to a single charged particle. But the
field is nonetheless "uniquely determined" - that is, the values of each state
variable for each point of space are unequivocally fixed - "by the set of
charges, their velocities, and the initial and boundary conditions under which
they occur." Physical systems like these, then, may not be analysable into
discrete parts similar in kind, but that does not mean that they cannot be
analysed at all.^**
In fact, Nagel has subtly incorporated part of Kohler's argument into
his own, for the need to set "boundary conditions" was an essential part of
Kohler's position. Just as Kohler rejected the assumption that nature, or
mind, is composed of independent elements similar in kind, he also took care
to deny any adherence to "the kind of romantic-philosophical inspiration"
(Erbauung) contained in the view that everything is related to everything else.
311 Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York, 1961), pp. 388 ff.,
esp. pp. 392, 395-96. Cf. D.C. Phillips, "Organicism in the Late
19th and Early 20th Centuries," Journal of the History of Ideas, 31
(1970), pp. 413-32, esp. p. 431, and Holistic Thought in Social Science
(Stanford, Calif., 1976), pp. 12 ff., 115-16.
- 447 -
Such a proposition may be true in a "formal" sense, he admitted, but to
take it seriously would mean to deny the existence of physical Gestalten "in
a fruitful and scientifically very real sense of the world." Of course a
system's degree of relative independence from or dependence upon its sur
roundings varies with the boundary conditions, and the first task of physic
al research is to determine these. Natural scientific laws, if clearly stated,
refer to specifically limited, segregated physical systems; "and the spon
taneous distribution of physical material in such systems yields physical Ge
stalten in the only meaning of the word that can be made clear and strict."
He recognized that electromagnetic fields are not strictly "segregated" in
this sense, but asserted that the only real difference between them and the
other examples he gave was that the boundaries were not abrupt in this
312
case.
Ernst Mach had said much the same thing in his own brief discussion
of physical systems in The Analysis of Sensations. Precisely because every
thing is related to everything else, he had claimed that it was more effec
tive to concentrate upon contiguous areas, as Maxwell had done, and insisted
on the assumption of maximum continuity within these. Thus, for Mach, the
selection of a particular portion of the whole universe for discussion
was dictated by the practical needs of research, hot by ontology. Kohler was
not opposed to pragmatic criteria. He specifically limited his discussion
to effects large enough to be recognized as the influences of the parts
of a group; for "it is in any case a fact and a fortunate thing for our under
standing of nature that most of the connections that can be constituted ...
have a minimal influence on natural events." However, in the vehemence of
- 448 -
his reaction to the doctrine that everything is related to everything else
he nearly denied it, while Mach explicitly accepted it. Kohler clearly wish
ed to establish more than pragmatic definitions alone. The idea of physical
Gestalten in the sense of topographically determined systems is a "much richer
and above all objectively determined concept" than that of a sum of elements.
In such cases, he maintainted, we have no choice of thinking of one arrange
ment of points instead of another. "TheGestalt law observed by such material
and the specific structure spontaneously and objectively assumedby itprescribe

313
for us what we are to recognize 'as one' [a Gestalt]."
In psychology, too, Kohler argued, the same problem arises with the
idea that only "consciousness as a whole" is immediately given. This he call
ed "the greatest enemy of a fruitful Gestalt theory committed to concrete con
clusions," for "with this kind of reality one really cannot do much." The
result is either general assent without consequences, or the false conclusion
that any abstraction must be permitted, so that "consciousness is again treat
ed in a piece-meal [stuckhafte] way as, for example, the philosopher Hume used
to do." Thus such unclear ideas of "totality" tend to produce their opposites
in the end, and the important point is missed - "the existence of self-enclosed,
finitely extended Gestalten with their scientifically determinable, natural
laws." In psychology, too, "the Gestalt principle, in harmony with its own em
pirical objects, involves a finite application and leads therefore to direct

..31A
results.
Here, for the first time, the philosophical implications of Kohler's
313 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 47, 168. Emphasis in the original.
314 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 157-58.
- 449 -
1913 critique of the "constancy hypothesis" became clear. Now the bete
noire was not only Helmholtz, but also Descartes, and not Descartes the me
chanist alone, but the geometer as well. Descartes' error, in brief, was to
assume that both nature and the psyche actually functioned the way his ma
thematics did, "to reduce the physical d y n a m ic world to a purely geometrical
one." Kohler thought that this was understandable in his time, when the
physics of extended systems had not yet been developed, "but we no longer
have this excuse. We make the same mistake only because we carry out philo-
315
sophical reflections far from physical experience." As we have seen,
Friedrich Schumann and others had long since protested against the introduc
tion of "fictive", mathematically defined "elements" into psychology. How
ever, Schumann's "observed" elements were themselves geometrical fragments,
such as points and lines. The implication was that these remained unchanged
in sensation, and were combined or "summarized" in different ways by the
mind under different stimulus conditions. Thus Kohler could say that this
was only Cartesian "geometrism" in another guise.
The issue went deeper than this. David Hume, too, had refused to ac
cept mathematically defined "essences" not found in sensation, such as the
length of a line. His "impressions", like the atoms of classical mechanics,
were indivisible. Descartes, however, rejected physical atomism, for the
abstractions of his geometry required infinite divisibility to ensure that

316
qualities could be put into a series and measured. It was this presuppo-
315 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p.; 170.
316 For this distinction, see Lindenfeld, The Transformation of Positivism,

pp. 33-34.
- 450 -
sition that Kohler meant when he spoke of "geometry"; and it was this pre
supposition, too, that physicist-philosophers like Helmholtz had
made the basis of their own scientific thinking, and then transferred from
mechanistic physics into sensory psychology. Yet Kohler cannot really
accuse Helmholtz of being ignorant of physics, only of being an adherent of
Newtonian physics and not of field theory. In fact, we are really dealing
with two kinds of elementism, one formalistic, derived from the imperatives
of mathematical analysis and closely linked to rationalism, the other phe-
nomenalistic and empiricist. From the point of view of Wertheimers Gestalt
or structural immanentism, however, the two had much in common; and in any
case, by the time Kohler began to study psychology the two had become hope
lessly intertwined. Kohler, armed with physical and psychological Gestalten
and the proof that at least the former could be described mathematically,
directed his attack against both kinds of elementism at once, without dis
tinguishing between them.
In Kohlers opinion, the tendency to "geometrism" and "summative
thinking" is perfectly comprehensible from the standpoint of "the psychology
of knowledge" (Erkenntnispsychologie). The things of daily experience, af
ter all, are arranged geometrically and have fixed, often linear borders; they
317
do not tend to dissolve into continuous flows and processes. Seen in
this light, his argument against "geometrism" could be interpreted moderate
ly or radically. Either it is necessary only to recognize the existence
of suprasummative entities and experience alongside our normal, everyday
"geometrical" experience; or one could assert that process, flow or dis-
- 451 -
tribution are primary, and that "geometrical" arrangements of fixed objects
exist only within them. In fact, Kohler, like Koffka and Wertheimer, had
already taken the second option. Gestalten are, for him, both objects and
their relatedness in context. Processes underlie the latter and these
result in the former. This is what he meant when he said that Gestalt laws
"determine" what we are to regard "as one". Thus, although things are
the primarily given in perception, this is not evidence against the primacy
of either structured context or process, but is true because of that pri
macy^. Still, it was a bold leap, both in physics and in psychology, from
the assertion that there are numerous exceptionsto "geometrism" to the claim
that we must proceed from these exceptions in order to develop either a
coherent theory of perception or a unified philosophical world-view. But
that is just the leap Kohler took.
c. The Psychophysical Problem: Kohler*s Isomorphism and its Implications
Kohlers dicussion thus far showed, he thought, that when Werthei
mer proposed transverse and total processes in the brain to account for
the phenomena of seen movement, "he did not unjustifiably project onto phy
sics specific features of certain phenomenal entities, as many believed;
rather, he specified fundamental properties of physical Gestalten, which
may be accurately demonstrated in physics at any time. There is no
longer anything hypothetical about this solution...." The task now was to
show that the physical Gestalten in the nervous system are "analogous or in
a broad sense parallel" to those of perception. This raised the issue of
what should be parallel to what, which Kohler dubbed "the Wertheimer problem".
- 452 -
The older theory, too, was based on a form of parallelism, the presupposition
of mutually isolated sensory processes corresponding to isolated conduction
pathways in the nervous system. The idea of numerous physical systems cor
responding to locally independent sensory psychophysical processes "is not
an impossible thought," he conceded. But its acceptance excludes a second
possibility "which makes just as much sense and has much greater physical
interest," the idea that "the somatic field could just as well be one physic-
. system.
al * .318
This possibility, Kohler claimed, was never expressly excluded by
experimenting psychologists. Instead, the first view was simply presupposed
as a matter of course, even by the physicists who participated in the found
ing of the discipline. However, physiological observations have since reveal
ed not only a set of isolated pathways from the retina to the visual area
of the brain, but also numerous., transverse functional connections among the
fibers at all psychophysical levels. In addition, "sharper observation" on
the psychological side has discovered numerous "suprageometric" characteristics
of the perceived world, such as the anisotropy of visual space, with its
characteristic directions, up and down, right and left. Thus, from the
points of view of both psychology and neuroanatomy, he concluded, it is not

319
in the least "inexact" to propose the second possibility.
Such analogies and parallels among phenomenal and physiological
structures showed, Kohler now claimed, that the opposition between the phy
sical world and consciousness is "customarily somewhat exaggerated." If
Wertheimers parallelism, or his own, more radical version of it, were
319 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 178, 183 ff.
- 453 -
really to be carried out, it must be shown that there is an "objective si
milarity between the Gestalt characteristics of psychophysical events and
those of the phenomenal field - not only in general, in the sense that we
are dealing with Gestalten in both cases, but in the specific character of
every Gestalt in each individual case." Wundt, he noted, had loosened the
bonds of strict psychophysical parallelism in order to insure the indepen
dent value of the psychical. Johannes Muller had proposed a different theo
ry, that psychological events were a depiction (Abbild) of events in the
nervous system. G.E. Muller had systematized that theory in his "psycho
physical axioms" and had applied it to color perception. But "we mean some
thing different and more radical even than this," Kohler asserted: "actual
consciousness is related in each case to corresponding psychophysical events
according to (phenomenally and physically) real structural properties, not
merely connected to them without an objective relationship." This was the

32o
postulate that Kohler would later call "psychophysical isomorphism."
In a footnote attached to this proclamation, Kohler opposed the claim,
common among those who asserted a qualitative difference between the physic
al and the psychical, that even the most exact knowledge of the brain will
tell us nothing about conscious experience. "A brain observation is in prin
ciple conceivable," he countered, "which would recognize in Gestalt, and
thus in the most essential characteristics, something physical similar to
that which the subject phenomenally experienced." Such an experiment is
"nearly unthinkable" from a practical point of view, he conceded, but this

321
does not detract from its possibility in principle.
320 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 192-93. Emphasis in the original.
321 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. 193, n. 1.
- 454 -
At first glance, this reads very much like Machs description of what
he meant when he spoke of "seeking" brain processes that would correspond
to the "components" of sensory processes. The title of the chapter in which
Kohlers postulate appeared was a direct quotation of Goethes declaration,
"Penn was innen, das ist auBen," which we have already encountered in our
discussion of Mach and Avenarius. The key word, both here and there,
is "is", and the direction in both cases is from within to without. The
correspondence is so close that one student of the matter has implied that
Kohler "profited" from Mach without citing his source, in order to avoid of
fending Stumpf. More likely is that Kohler arrived at his postulate by

322
generalizing from and transforming G.E. Miller's "psychophysical axioms".
More important than the issue of sources, however, are the funda
mental differences between Kohler's isomorphism and that of Mach. In the
first place, Kohler's was an isomorphism of "objectively related" struc
tures, not of correlated point patterns or "components". This difference
was rooted in Kohler's acceptance of Wertheimer's epistemological position,
which was completely opposed to Mach's sensationalism. It also had impor
tant practical consequences; for it led to different conceptions both of
psychology and of brain action from those of Mach. Finally, Kohler did
322 Peter Keiler, "Isomorphie-Konzept und Wertheimer-Problem. Beitrage

zu einer historisch-methodologischen Analyse des Kohlerschen Ge-
staltansatzes, I," Gestalt Theory. 2 (1980), pp. 78-112, here p. 81.
Keiler seems not to have considered the possibility mentioned in
the text, even though Kohler cites Muller indirectly in the same
paragraph in which he set up his postulate, and treats Mullers
color theory in much the same radicalizing fashion; see below, p. 461..
Apparently Keiler was forced to make his claim by his rather narrow
treatment of the historical context involved. See my reply, "Zu
einer Annahme von Peter Keiler: Eine Berichtigung," Gestalt Theory,
3 (1981), pp. 153-54.
- 455 -
something Mach never did. He tried to apply his postulate to the construction
of a concrete theory, or at least to make such a construction seem plausible.
This effort, however, rested on an approach to scientific theorizing more close
ly related to that of Planck and Hertz than to that of Mach.
Kohler indicated two ways in which the optic sector could be construct
ed in order to produce the entities and contexts in question. According to
the "zone theory" advocated by G.E. Muller and Johannes von Kries, already de
scribed, initial reception occurred in the retina; then the result was convey
ed along conducting pathways without further alteration to the occipital lobe,
where interaction and association processes could take place. Kohler, how
ever, chose a more radical hypothesis. In keeping with the idea that "the
somatic field could just as well be one physical system," he presented the
emergent character of visual Gestalten as the result of "one Gestalt process"
in which "the whole optic sector from the retina onwards" is involved, includ
ing the transverse functional connections among the conducting fibers. How
ever, only the processes in the occipital lobe are accompanied by consciousness.
Thus, instead of postulating a one to one correspondence between nervous
processes and Gestalt experiences, he asserted that "the former are more ex
tended." Since the optic nerve is really a "brain commissure," he argued,
there is "no reason to deny that peripheral parts of the optic system can
323
have the same type of function that one ascribes to central fields."
The implications of this idea for both psychological and physiologic
al theory were far-reaching. The most important was the elimination of the
retinal image as a fixed, two-dimensional picture transmitted point for
323 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 197-98, 200.
- 456 -
point from the retina, then transformed or processed in the occipital lobe.
With the end of the retinal image, most of the troublesome problems it
raised also disappeared. For Gestalt theory, for example, there were no lon
ger any "local signs." The three-dimensional perceptual world that we see
is not constructed from an initially flat retinal image according to in
structions provided by additional retinal elements, but appears complete
in perception as the product of "nervous processes in extension," as Koffka
later called them, occuring in the three-dimensional optic sector. Simi
larly, the need for expedients such as Hering's "memory colors" also dis
appeared, while Herings concept of the "inner eye" could be retained, even
expanded. Kohler and Koffka continued to use the term "retinal image," but
only for the sake of convenience. They meant nothing more by it than the
324
arrangement of incoming light rays upon initial reception.
Kohler's hypothesis also meant the rejection of the "projection theo
ry," the notion that the elements of the retinal image, once transmitted
to the occipital lobe, were then projected point for point onto its sur
face. The "projection theory" was a deduction from the constancy hypothe
sis, but even for those who did not accept that idea an anatomically fixed
correspondence between retinal and cortical elements was generally assumed.
Gestalt theory as Kohler presented it denied both:
A 'line of flow1 which begins at particular retinal elements does

not necessarily and invariably go to one and the same place in the
visual cortex. For Gestalt theory the lines of flow are free to
follow different paths within the homogeneous conducting system,
and the place where a given Tine of flow will end in the central
field is determined in every case by the conditions in the system
324 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, e.g. p. 242; Koffka, Principles, pp.
59, 115. Cf. Pastore, Selective History, p. 304.
- 457 -
as a whole.325
Kohler admitted that this proposition may seem strange at first, but in
sisted that it was "in no way contradicted by the facts of experience."
He could easily have cited William James' assertion that "the brain acts as
a whole," or the investigations with aphasics that Henri Bergson had also
cited to support his own holistic brain theory. However, Kohler's theory
rested upon the notion of a limiting "topography"; functional interaction
in vision was thus necessarily restricted to the optic sector.
Such views, Kohler insisted, did not prescribe featureless continui
ty within the system, but were perfectly "compatible with rigorous ar
ticulation." Units such as Wertheimer's "total processes" could also be
seen as Gestalten, so long as we do not forget that "the process of the
whole system has Gestalt character." Thus, in Kohler's terminology, pro
cesses in the optic sector were not "strong" but more like "weak" Gestalten.
In this way he incorporated '. Wertheimer's hypothesis into his own, more
radical framework. He emphasized, however, that this was only a hypothe
sis. Should it prove to be incorrect, it would still be possible to re
turn to Wertheimer's original model.
Kohler's isomorphism has often been reduced to the absurd idea
that there must be apple-shaped brain processes corresponding to physical
apples. In fact, although he rejected the notion of a fixed, two-dimen
sional retinal image, Kohler made it clear that the arrangements of incoming
light rays on the retina are "in general not physical Gestalten at all,
but summative geometrical manifolds, albeit physical ones ....Seen Gestalten
325 Kohler,.Die physischen Gestalten, p. 243. Emphasis in the original.
- 458 -
are therefore not reducible to an image [Abbild] of the physical Gestalten.

326
of the environment." Instead, he posited a qualitative relation between
phenomenal structures and brain processes. The phenomenal symmetry of
circles, for example, was reflected in psychophysical processes that would
also be symmetrical, but not necessarily circular. Citing Wertheimers re
mark that "neighborhood" in the brain could be thought of as either a geo
metric or a functional linkage, Kohler spoke here of "functional", as opposed
to "geometrical" symmetry.
To explain what he meant, he cited the example of "resistance length,"
a concept developed by the physicist Ohm. A branching off of current in two
wires, for example, is regarded as "symmetrical" not when the wires are the
same length in millimeters, but when the lengths are in inverse relation to
their resistances. This was simply a case of the general principle that
two "lengths" are equal in physics not when the same number of centimeters
is involved, but when the same effects have been achieved. Applied to the
optic sector, this meant that the transverse connections between points in
the two regions of the visual cortex may be several centimeters long, while
connections between two points in the same region might be only one millime
ter in length. Yet both connections would be functionally "the same" in

327
terms of the effects produced.
This was clearly a bold set of speculations, an isomorphism quali
tatively different from those that had preceded it. As Kohler said later,
326 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 194-95. Cf. Pastore, Selective
History, p. 287.
- 459 -
for both Eering and Mach isomorphism meant only the reproduction in the
brain of "the logical order of experience"; the component processes are lined
up "like specimens in a museum." He found that his own conception did more
328
justice to the facts of dynamic interaction in the phenomenal field.
Kohler did not quite do justice with this remark to the difference between
Mach's and Hering's conceptions, already described. Hering's view was more
"dynamic" in Kohler's sense of the word. He, like Kohler, postulated that
"to each spatial separation between two receptor elements of the retina
there is, as it were, a corresponding functional separation of the related

329
elements of the visual substance." Nonetheless, the fact remains that
with his revised conception of the "inner eye" as a physical system and his
introduction of "freedom of flow" in the visual cortex instead of fixed re
tinal projection, Kohler had radically transformed Hering's theoretical frame
work.
Why did Kohler choose this more radical route? The reasons he gave
were: first, that we have no evidence of a "double consciousness" such as
would be required according to the "zone theory"; second, that there is no
reason to assume nervous conduction at all without assuming the influence
of Gestalt processes during its course; and third, that the application of
.330
such a model to specific problems is "simpler. The last reason may well
have been the most important; for the specific problems Kohler had in mind
demanded Gestalt processes of considerable extent, if they were to be ex
plained according to his postulate. In addition to the phenomena of seen move-
328 Kohler, Gestalt Psychology, rev. ed., pp. 38-39.
329 Hering, Light Sense (cited in part two, n. 22), p. 176. Emphasis in
the original.
- 460 -
ment and stationary Gestalten already covered by Wertheimers hypothesis,
these included the problems raised by the suprageometric characteristics
of the visual field, e.g., the anisotropy of visual space.
In addition, there was the behavior of the apes and its relation to
their visual field. On the last page of his monograph on intelligence, Koh
ler had 'said that a "detailed Gestalt theory" was especially necessary in
view of the fact "that insightful solutions in this area of intelligence
are necessarily of the same kind-as the (optically given) field structure,
in so far as they occur in d yna m ic , directed processes- according to this
structure.tt331
* Though he said nothing of this here, we may suppose that
it lay at the back of his mind during his theorizing, and that he chose a
hypothesis of sufficient breadth to eventually be able to account for such
phenomena and structures, as well.
d. The Postulate Applied; Kohlers Approach to Theory Construction
When it came to concrete applications of his postulate in this book,
however, Kohler confined himself to less difficult and complicated cases.
The first was the problem of figure and ground. To understand why he select
ed this particular problem, a brief digression is necessary. Kohler did
not begin his book with the "Ehrenfels criteria", but with an exposition of
the color theory G.E. Muller had presented in 1896. As we have shown,
Muller had argued that processes in the retina and in the optic nerves corres-
331 Kohler, Mentality, p. 238; Intelligenzpriifungen, p. 193. Emphasis in

the original.
- 461 -
ponding to the complementary colors were reversible chemical reactions of
the kind described by Nemst. Kohler immediately generalized this to assert
that all excitations in the "somatic field" are "potentially" reversible
chemical reactions. By this he meant that these excitations follow the
laws established for such reactions, although they may not actually reverse
their course. This generalization applies to all sensory fields, Kohler
claimed, but most directly to vision, since the retina is not a peripheral
332
organ like any other, but "really a brain commissure."
Now, for Kohler an essential requirement for the seeing of Gestalten
of any kind is that of "differentiation" from a homogeneous "field". In
fact, he said, the condition of "being set off against" surroundings is per
haps the most important condition for seeing a thing. He repeated this later
in the book as the chief example.^.of the "suprageometrical" phenomena that
Gestalt theory must take into account. Here he cited a preliminary report
of the experiments that a Danish psychologist named Edgar Rubin had made in
Gottingen on phenomena of figure and ground. Rubin found that the essential
difference between them was that the figure "has" form, while the ground has
none. The figure appears to have "thing" character, while the ground has
only "stuff" or "material" (Sfoff) character. He demonstrated the difference
most impressively with pictures in which, after steady fixation, the part
of the picture that was at first seen as the figure suddenly becomes the
ground, or vice versa. The best known of these is probably the goblet fi
gure, which has since come to be associated with Gestalt psychology in the
minds of many (Figure 15). As Kohler put it, figure and ground are "two
332 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, esp. pp. 3-4, 25.
- 462 -
Figure 15: Goblet figure (figure and ground)
Source: Rubin, Visuell wahrgenommene Figuren, plate 3.
very concrete and phenomenologically real inodes of being [Daseinsweisen]

333
of the optical." The importance of Rubins work for Kohlers theory is
333 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 26-27, 183. Edgar Rubin, "Die
visuelle Wahmehmuag von Figuren," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Beri'cht
uber den 6. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1914 (Leipzig,
1914), pp. 60-62; cf. Visuell wahrgenommp-ne Figuren (1915; trans.
Copenhagen, 1921), esp. pp. 35 ff., 46 ff. It should be noted, how
ever, that Rubin himself denied the primacy of form in the appearance
of things, and offered an empiricistic interpretation of his results
as the products of a "habitual attitude. See Visuell wahrgenommene
Figuren, p. 94.
463
difficult to overestimate. He had already said in 1913 that the "biological
ly primary reality" was not "sensations", but "things". With the publica
tion of Rubin's findings, he could say that this was no mere epistemological
claim, but an empirical fact.
According to his generalization from Miller's theory, the processes
underlying such phenomena must be complementary chemical reactions among so
lutions of different ionic concentration, leading to "potential leaps" along
the border between the excitations corresponding to the "figure" and those
corresponding to the "ground". However, Kohler pointed out, the electro
motive forces thus generated were insufficient by themselves as correlates
of phenomenal Gestalten, because they lacked "form and size." That is, they
do not depend upon the form and size of the conducting system, but only
upon the differences in ionic concentration on either side of the boundary.
They do, however, produce electric currents; and, as Kohler had shown in his
discussion of "strong" Gestalten,the "shape" of these does depend, upon the
"topography" of the conductor through which they flow. With the entire op
tic sector as a conducting system or "topography" in which such current flows
could occur, Kohler had the framework within which he could complete the de-
334
duction he had started before.
Kohler hypothasized that when a small, white figure such as a circle
is exposed on a homogeneous gray background, the result on the retina will
be two sets of chemical reactions with a corresponding "potential leap" along
the boundary between the two stimulus regions. If equal amounts of electri
city are involved on both sides of the boundary, then this quantity would be
334 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 26-27, 40, 203.
- 464 -
displaced over a larger area in the region corresponding to the background
than in the region corresponding to the disk. The latter region will there
fore have a higher "current density" (Energiedichte) than the former! As
Kohler put it, it is this difference, transported along nervous pathways
by osmotic diffusion, and reproduced at the cortical level, that "helps"

335
visible things to achieve "their lively phenomenal existence." Thus
far the schema appears to be little different from that of G.E. Muller,for
the primary interaction occurs in the retina.
Kohler, however, drew an important implication from this finding. If
the disk is fixated steadily, he wrote, a steady "process structure" will
emerge, since retinal reactions and their regional boundaries would then have
a constant locus. In such circumstances, a charge in the color of the fi
gures or their backgrounds would bring a corresponding change in the retinal
reactions, but no change in the formal relationships reproduced in the con
ducting system. There would be "one and the same current form, whatever color
the topography might have." Kohler thought that this solved the problem
posed by Johannes von Kries and Erich Becher - the independent reproductive
effect of form, regardless of the color of the stimuli. In this schema,
"the structural distribution of the process is just as much a physically
real datum as a color process ... a form process can therefore just as
well evoke reproductive effects as a color process can (in reality better)."
He conceded that this said nothing about the theory of reproduction in the
nervous system itself, but argued that a least the problem is "no more puzz-
336
ling" for form than for color.
335 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 206 ff., 228 ff., esp. p. 207.
- 465 -
Kohler then applied the new schema to Weber's law. Here he de
monstrated in detail what he had meant in the paper on "structural func
tions," when he claimed that for Gestalt theory there was no difference
in principle between the perception of a colored form and that of the
relations between two patches of color. According to Kohler, current
densities depend not only on the size of the stimulated areas, but also
on objective differences between the two color reactions in the retina.
If the color of the ground, for example, appears below the difference
threshold of the figure color, then the Gestalt produced by the original
figure-ground relation is not seen. In electrolytic systems, electromotive
forces must attain a minimum value before there is current flow at all.
Thus, Kohler reasoned, it ought to be possible to translate one threshold
concept into the other by assuming that the electromotive forces in the
brain would have specific, measurable values corresponding to the psy-

337
chological threshold values.
Nernst's theory of galvanic chains had been derived from the theo
ry of potential differences between solutions of unequal concentration.
Kohler therefore took over Nernst's calculations from the former theory,
because, he said, they were identical reaction types, differing only in
speed. After carrying out the required calculations, he found the po
tential difference does not depend directly upon the difference of ionic
concentrations, but upon their ratio, according to the equation 0^ - 0^ =

c2
const, log , where 0 is the potential and c the concentration.
C1
This was the same equation as that for Fechner's version of Weber's
- 466 -
law. The relation held within a range of concentrations of ! : 50. Weber's
law, too, holds for achromatic colors within the same brightness range, which
is adequate for ordinary seeing. The brightness ratio between black paper and
newly fallen snow, for example, is approximately 1 : 4' Thus, Kohler found,
Weber's law was applicable in the same way both to pht enal threshold differ
ences and to the physical-chemical processes he supposed to underlie them.
He even calculated the value of the difference limen in microvolts, and claim
ed that the results agreed with measurements recently taken on a galvanometer.

338
All this, he claimed, was "no accident."
Kohler had clearly turned the tables on those who argued that we need
more complete knowledge of the brains structure and function before we can
set up reasonable hypotheses about the physiological correlates of perception.
Instead of bemoaning the fact that the brain was terra incognita at least as
far as higher functions were concerned, Kohler used the situation to his ad
vantage, as a license to set up a hypothetical-deductive model of the kind
normally applied in theoretical physics. The use of such an approach was clear
ly rooted in Kohler's conception of the nature of physical law and of the per-
missable modes of theory construction in natural science. He made this con
ception, and its antipositivist implications, explicit in his discussion of
the mathematics for strong and weak Gestalten.
In the theory of knowledge and logic, he said, there is much talk
of "essential laws" (Wesensgesetze), which supposedly describe "inner ne
cessities," not mere "empirical rules." These are considered to be character
istic of the human studies, while the laws of nature are "slightly disparaged
as verites du fait." But how would it be, he asked, if "nature also possessed
338 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 212 ff., esp. p. 218.
- 467 -
laws which follow from the essence of the given natural entities," even
though we "know" these laws as yet only by induction? Kohler claimed that
"precisely physical structures or Gestalten show this quasi-apriori char
acter." Their "peculiar characteristic" is that they are "undoubtedly as
real as anything physical and yet ... purely theoretically determinable
starting from a single very general empirical law." For the structure
formed by the distribution of charges on a conductor and its environing field,
for example, only a proposition like "a quantity of electricity at rest

N
produces around it an electrostatic field of the form " is required
as a basis for calculation. "But this proposition (or its equivalent dif
ferential equation) is unassailable within the limits of possible measure
ment." The choice of Cavendish-Coulomb or of Laplace differential equa
tions for the description of this case depends on the "material hypothesis"
one selects. But "if there is a nature independent of us," Kohler argued,
"it should make no difference." It is "only a question of taste or mathe-

339
matical technique"; the result in any case is the same.
Despite the use of words like "essence" and "quasi-apriori," such
statements, particularly the last, might still have been considered con
sistent with a pragmatist or conventionalist philosophy of science. But
Kohler was as careful to defend himself against positivist conventionalism
as he was to protect himself against romantic, idealist holism. In the
section on "weak" Gestalten, for example, he noted that ever since Ampere
had developed mathematical expressions that could directly describe the ef
fects of "whole currents," such attempts had been condemned as "pure mathe-
- 468 -
matical fictions," because different elementary laws could lead by integra
tion to the same result, and because the current interaction described is
allegedly not observable. With the emergence of the electron theory and with
new observations on electric charge, however, "new viewpoints" had come to
the fore. Kohler thought that most physicists would no longer agree with the
"radical positivist view." In any case, "for Gestalt theory there is no
reason to think of the electrodynamic differential laws as simply mathematic-

. _. 340
al fictions.
The structure of this argument is consistent with that of Stumpf*s cri
tical realism. For Stumpf, too, differential equations were not "mathematic
al fictions." However, in his philosophy of science it was the different
epistemological status of physical and psychological reality that dictated
different methods of obtaining evidence about them. Given his acceptance of
the views of Hume and Mill on the "inconstancy" of sensations, this conclusion
was both consistent and necessary. For Kohler, the separation was evidently
not so great. He even used Stumpf's style of psychological observation to
convince himself of the reality of lines of force. For contemporary phy
sics, he said, there was "nothing fictive" about these except their discrete
and individual appearance in standard field diagrams. Yet the curves Maxwell
used to illustrate his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism make "a pleas
ing impression on the eye," and if one takes good pictures with enough curves
and closes his eyes a little, a shaded image (Schattierungsbild) appears
which is "nearly continuous .... This way one makes it more visibly clear
[anschaulicher] that something physically real, and not the presence of
- 469 -
analytic functions alone, is concentrated around the conductor in such
a characteristic way. (See Figure 16)
.This was phenomenological physics of a literal kind, indeed.
Mach, too, had used psychological observations to explain the origin
of physical concepts, but in a rather different way. Here Kohler criti
cized Mach directly. Faced with the problems of determining the distribu
tion of current on a sphere, for example, Kohler claimed that we can give
the answer - concentric spherical shells with symmetrical fields perpen
dicular to them - "at a glance" and with "the impression of only grasp
ing the essence of the case," even though we have never perceived such
a structure. At the beginning of The Science of Mechanics, Mach had
called such solutions "instinctive." In the case of more elementary pro
blems like that of the lever, he attributed the solution to "unnoticed
experience" in which we draw an analogy from the symmetry of the two sides
of the body to that of the two sides of the lever. But in cases like
that of the sphere, Kohler protested, "unnoticed experience" cannot be in
volved; and such solutions are actually not as "easy" as the word "instinc
tive" might indicate. The precise mathematical determination of the func
tion appropriate to them has been achieved only by the greatest masters
of mathematical physics. "The origin" of such intuitive certainties, Koh-

342
ler thought, "must lie deeper."
- 470 -
Figure 16: Uniform magnetic field distributed by an electric current

in a straight conductor
Source: Maxwell, Treatise, Figure X7II.
- 471 -
e. The Law of Pragnanz and the Second Law; Reason in the Appearances
It was with Maxwell's field diagrams, again, that Kohler indicated
where he thought the "deeper" origin lay. They showed, he maintained, that
we can predict "from a purely structural point of view" the movements of
conductors and magnets, and the groupings of their corresponding fields,
in the direction of "increased evenness of distribution, simplicity and
symmetry" (see, for example, Figure 17). This was a qualitative version of
the tendency, described by Planck, of all processes in physical systems,
when "left to themselves", to solve mayimum-mi nimum problems - to achieve
the maximum level of stability, which was synonymous with the m-immim ex
penditure of energy that prevailing conditions will allow. This can be
understood only on the basis of the second law of thermodynamics, that is,
the entropy principle. Translated into the terms of this book, that prin
ciple stated that the amount of energy in a system wilL be "as small as the
Gestalt conditions permit." Kohler now contended that the principle applied
343
to both strong and weak Gestalten.
In fact, all of the examples Kohler had offered of physical Gestal
ten were equilibrium processes, whether it was the equalization of osmotic
pressures in two solutions by the migration of ions across the boundary
between them, or the distribution immediately "striven for" by charged partic
les on conductors. Kohler claimed that all directed processes governed by
the second law of thermodynamics also fulfilled the Ehrenfels criteria. In
kinetic theory, too, a displacement in one part of the system leads directly
- 472 -
S table fo s itio n r.
Figure 17: Circular current in uniform field of force
Source; Maxwell, Treatise, Figure XX.
- 473 -
to displacements in another part. Heat currents, for example, are not
structures in the same sense that distributions of charged particles are,
but "unordered energy"; yet each molecule in the flow is still dependent
upon all the others. In extreme cases, a point is reached at which no dis
placement can occur without affecting all the other parts of the flow.
At such points the second law refers to the entire system, and "the law
for the system prescribes what occurs in the parts, not the other way about.
Since the processes in the brain and in the nervous system are
also physical, Kohler reasoned, it followed that they, too, must obey these
laws, though admittedly the "Gestalt conditions" would be far more complex
than these generally set in physics. Thus "reformulations" (Pmformulieninpen)
of psychophysical Gestalten cannot be "arbitrary", but must instead be di
rectional in the sense of the second law. Kohler recognized, however, that
the existence of such maximum-minimum processes,' even in the brain, said little
about their relationship to phenomenal Gestalten. The relation between the
"energy concentration" of such processes and their "form of distribution"
(Ausbreitungsart) must still be explained. How, he asked, do such proces
ses "look"? This question made sense at all only within the framework of
a fundamental assumption, that "quality and quantity are not two different
properties of events but only two different aspects of one and the samp
event," as Koffka later expressed it.^^ KShler attempted to answer the
question with an example from hydrostatics, taken from Mach*s Science of
Mechanics.
345 Koffka, Principles, p. 108; Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, pp. 253-
54.
- 474 -
Mach recounted there experiments in which the physicist van der
Mensbrugghe dipped a square wire frame into a solution of soap and water,
then placed a loop of moistened thread on the soap film. When the film
inside the loop was punctured, the film outside contracted until the thread
formed a circle in the center of the liquid surface (see Figure 18). As
Mach pointed out, "the circle, of all plane figures of the same circum
ference, has the largest area; consequently, the liquid film has contract
ed to a minimum." Such "minimal surfaces" could be obtained in a number
of other ways as well. Mach noted that such surfaces could take particu
larly pleasing forms, and remarked that equilibrium states evidently have
something to do with symmetry and regularity:
What has equilibrium to do with symmetry and regularity? The

explanation is obvious. In every symmetrical system every defor
mation that tends to destroy the symmetry is complemented by an
equal and opposite deformation that tends to restore it. In
each deformation positive or negative work is done. One condition,
therefore, though not an absolutely sufficient one, that a maxi
mum or minimum of work corresponds to the form of equilibrium,
is thus supplied by symmetry. Regularity is successive s y m m e t r y . 346
Kohler disagreed with this formulation, arguing that regularity is
prior to symmetry. Observations in chrystallography by Pierre Curie suggest
ed that asymmetry is a condition of natural processes in general. "Left
to themselves," Kohler said, this asymmetry is lost and "the entity becomes
more and more regular as it approaches the end state." In many other cases,
too, physical systems tend toward end states characterized by "the sim
plest and most regular grouping." In such situations a quantitative change,
'a decrease in net energy, has a qualitative result, a change in the dis-
346 Mach, The Science of Mechanics (cited in part two, n. 68), pp. 488-89.
- 475 -
Figure 18: String on soap film
Source: Enlarged from Mach, The Science of Mechanics, p. 481.
- 476 -
tribution of the components in a specific direction. This he formulated
in a "preliminary1' way as a "tendency to simplest shape," or toward "the
Pragnanz of the Gestalt." With this he had made the step to psychology,
for the circular shape assumed by the thread in de Mensbrugghe's experiment
was also the shape assumed by a number of visual structures when "left to
themselves." As examples Kohler cited all of the phenomena reported at
the 1914 congress of experimental psychology at which Wertheimer had announc
ed his discovery of "the law of Pragnanz," as well as the experiments
reported by Adhemar Gelb at the same congress. To these he added an ad-
ditonal observation from a provocative source. In his Theory of Colors,
Goethe reported that the after-images of rectangles tended to recede from
the periphery, "and one believes he noticed that in square images the
corners become gradually blunted until at last an ever-diminishing, round

347
image floats before the eye."
Here, as so often in the history of science, the logic of dis
covery is different from the logic of justification. The aperqu that stood
at the beginning of the thinking that led to Kohler's book came not at the
beginning but at the end of that book. It was as though Kohler had gone
through such an extraordinary intellectual effort simply to make this single
idea seem more plausible. In the winter semester of 1913-1914, the semester
after Wertheimer presented his Gestalt theory for the first time in his
lectures, Kohler had offered a course called "The Physical Basis of Con-
347 Goethe, Farbenlehre, didaktischer Teil, Para. 25-26, cited in Kohler,

Die physischen Gestalten, p. 262^ Cf. Goethe's Theory of Colors,
trans. Charles L. Eastlake (1840), paperback ed. (Cambridge, Massa
chusetts, 1970), p. 9.
- 477 -
sciousness". As he recounted it in 1935:
When Wertheimer formulated his principle [of Pragnanz] in psy

chology I happened to be studying the general characteristics
of macroscopic physical states, and thus I could not fail to see
that it is the psychological equivalent of Machs [maximum-mini
mum] principle in physics.348
Still later, in his last book, he presented his reaction this way:
Clearly, the early Gestalt psychologists were not wrong when they
trusted their observations which appeared so mysterious to other
psychologists. For now the Gestalt psychologists discovered
that this procedure made them neighbors of the most advanced na
tural scientists, the physicists.-*49
With this the circle to the motif of insecurity with which Kohler began his
"Introduction for Biologists and Philosophers" was complete.
Kohler had said there that his object was to help psychologists
"to learn to see Gestalten in physics." For others this statement may
well have been a metaphor, but not for him. He could have gone the way of
Machs neutral monism, or Fritz Mauthner's linguistic variant, and said
that he would develop a language in which we could learn to speak of
physical Gestalten, despite the evolution of physicists' language in other
directions. Instead he chose to speak of "learning to see them in phy
sics." Thus Kohlers unified world picture was similar to that of Planck,
but it was different in one important respect. For Planck the reality
described by physical hypotheses is outside us, depicted only formally
by systems of equations which are testable in experience, but by no means
a direct image of that experience. Only the laws of nature are said to
348 Kohler, The Place of Value in a World of Facts (1938), paperback ed.
(New York, 1976), p. 197.
349 Kohler, -Task of Gestalt Psychology (cited above, n. 220), p. 59..
- 478 -
correspond to the laws of thought. This is not the same as saying that
there are specific functional relations between the realms, or even that
the functional-structural relations within the realms are strictly parallel
to one another. For Kohler, however, the "essence" of physical Gestalten,
as expressed in their mathematical laws, is the same as that of psychologic
al Gestalten, even though no such laws have yet been derived for them.
Kohler was a partisan of the "understanding nature," not the "connect
the appearances" view of science. For him, however, tinderstanding nature
was something intimately bound up with the appearances. As he later noted,
Wertheimers principle of Pragnanz "coincides with a direction often recogniz
ed in simplest a e s t h e t i c s . i t is in this context that his citation
of Goethe takes on meaning. Kohler also mentioned Goethe in his discussion
of the mathematics of physical Gestalten. To underline what he took to
be the ontological significance of the fact that similar series of different
ial equations can cover a wide variety of physical situations, he called
them "affinity series" (Verwandtschaftsreinen). This was an allusion to
Goethes novel, Wahlverwandtschaften, translated in English as Elective Af
finities, in which Goethe expresses a view of the physical-psychical rela
tionship similar to that of the poem already quoted. Kohler thought that
351
Goethe would have been pleased to learn of the existence of these series.
It is not implausible to suggest that allusions like this one in
dicate as much about Kohler's real beliefs as all his learned citations of
mathematical physics, few of which reappear in his later work. Actually,
350 Kohler, Task of Gestalt Psychology, p. 58.
- 479 -
both tend in the same direction, that of the beauty of natural order con
ceived as a unity immediately evident to those who would "learn to see"
it. For this view the proper term is not Berkeley's esse est percipi -
only that which we see, exists - but percipiamns essentia - we see the
essence of what exists. Goethe was not a mere poet, as Helmholtz once
disparagingly averred, but a believer, like Spinoza, in the palpable reali
ty of reason. However, this reason did not give order to chaotic appear
ances, but revealed itself in their midst. Gestalt theory, in Kohler's
version of it, is a true descendent of this form of rational realism.
f. Summary: Problematic Transformations
Seen in its immediate historical context, however, Kohler's book
was an effort to develop a new synthesis of positivism and realism, and by
doing this to establish the legitimacy of experimental psychology as
natural science without sacrificing its claims to philosophical standing.
What Kurt Koffka had attempted to do in 1912 at the methodological level
with his distinction between descriptive and functional concepts, Kohler
now carried out on a much broader front by means of a complex set of cate
gorical transformations.
(1) By applying the vocabulary of Wertheimers structural immanentism to
physics and attaching a realistic ontological rather than a pragmatic con
ventionalist interpretation to the results, Kohler could preserve the le
gitimating advantage offered to experimental psychology by its- association
with phenomenological physics, while discarding the sensationsalist epistemology
on which that alliance had originally been based. As a by-product, he could
- 480 -
retain Mach's acute psychological observations without having to resort to
such dubious expedients as "sensations of direction." The net effect, however,
was to transform phenomenlogical physics itself in the direction of Planck's
rational realism.
(2) At the level of theory construction, Kohler developed Mach's "heuristic
principle of research" - radicalized from G.E. Millers psychophysical axioms
in the direction of structural immanentism - into a new approach to the psycho
physical problem. He then applied this to visual perception with a greatly re
vised version of Hering's concept of the "inner eye". But in the absence of re
levant histological knowledge, he could make this application appear plausible
only by employing the type of deductive and mathematical arguments common in
rational realist physics. This set of intellectual transformations was proble
matic from the outset, both at the level of epistemology and philosophy of science
and at the level of theory construction in psychology and neurophysiology. Per
haps it will suffice to indicate only some of the difficulties and open questions
here.
At the level of epistemology, the most serious difficulty might be summariz
ed as a question: where is the real object? As we have shown, for Hering,
"seen objects" are only means to the end of apprehending or dealing with real
objects. This relationship held as well for Helmholtz's phenomenalism, although
his phenomena were not "objects" in Hering's sense. Mach retained the pragmatic
aspects of this view, but dropped epistemological realism in favor of ontologic
al phenomenalism. This raised the specter of solipsism, which he tried to ba
nish with the concept of neutral "elements". Kohler was very much a realist.
Thanks to his extension of Wertheimer's psychological ontology to physics, in
variant structures, or structural-functional relationships, could take the place
of Mach's neutral "elements". But the structure of Kohler's actual theory is
- 481 -
Che same as thac of Hering. The explanandum remains not real, but phenomenal
objects, or more exactly, the appearance of objects or "things" in a structured.vi
sual field. As he put it later, psychophysical isomorphism refers to "the si
milarity between sensory experience and the physiological processes accompany^

352
ing it, not to the relation between organic processes and the environment."
Thus the issue of whether or why "seen objects" and the relations among
them tend to resemble real objects and relations remains unresolved. In
Die physischen Gestalten Kohler explicitly avoided that issue: "to what
extent psychophysical and phenomenal Gestalten may nonetheless possess a
very high objectivity value [Objektivitatswert] will not yet be investigat
ed here." Kohlers failure to deal with this problem left him open to
the charge that he had slipped back into Berkeleyan. idealism, whether he
353
wished it or not.
The only alternative to the Scylla of solipsism would seem to be
the Charybdis of Leibnizian pre-established harmony. For how else could
Kohler guarantee that the forms produced in the brain actually had any re
lationship to those in the external world, if the "geometrical" stimulus
array which transmits the latter does not depict their structural relations
as well? Kohler did his best to exorcise this demon in a sentence: "If
we would avoid a theory of pre-established harmony between stimulus forms
and perceptual properties, we must conclude that geometrical symmetry in
352 Kohler, Gestalt Psychology. 1st ed., p. 174 n.
353 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. 195. The charge has been renewed
frequently in recent years. Cf. Keiler, "Isomorphie-Konzept und
Wertheimer-Problem", and Horst Gundlach, Reiz: Zur Verwendung eines
Begriffes in der Psychologie (Bern, 1976), esp. pp. 92-93.
- 482 -
the stimulus determines the suprageometrical physical symmetry of the de-
pendent psychophysical Gestalt process. This is a direct explanation.35A
The logic of this statement is unimpeachable, but it could not hide Kohler's
inability to say how this "determination" actually takes place.
The problem appears less serious if we keep to the level of psycho-
logy; there the correspondence, or lack of it, between phenomenal and real
objects becomes a question for research, not an epistemological issue. As
Koffka later put it, the question "why do things look as they do?" must be
asked of all perceptions, whether they are illusions or not. For Gestalt
theory the "distinction between two kinds of perception, normal and illusory,
disappears as a psychological distinction ... much as it may remain as an

355
epistemological distinction." Actually, however, the issue was not so
easily avoided on the psychological side, either. Here the relevant question
was the relation of Kohler's isomorphism to the stimulus concept propounded
by Koffka in his reply to Benussi. Koffka had already said in 1913 that
the stimulus is a releaser; we do not perceive the stimulus, but because
of the stimulus. But which stimulus, where? We are still faced with a
"total stimulus" configuration outside the perceiving organism which must ne
cessarily be different from the stimulus array on the retina. This, Kohler
admitted, is a "geometrical" pattern that contains "certainly no physical
Gestalten." Koffka later tried to solve the problem by dividing the stimu
lus concept into two, calling the physical object or configuration the
354 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. 233. Emphasis in the original.
- 483 -
"distant" and the arrangement on the retina the "proximal" stimulus.
This has been described as his most important contribution to perceptual
theory. It has also been contended that the distinction only brings new
356
difficulties along with it.
More important, perhaps, than such conceptual issues was the abili
ty of Kohler's postulate to generate research. According to this axiom,
psychology should be able "to tell us where to look for physical Gestalten"
in the brain, and deductions from the behavior of these ought to be able
to tell us about psychology. In fact, given the absence of exact knowledge
about the relevant brain processes, Kohler's program could only run in one
direction, at least at first. The result would be a vast expansion of
the research program already begun by Koffka in GieBen on the basis of
Wertheimer's hypothesis. All Kohler did here, however, was to make such
an expanded program seem feasible, if difficult, and to indicate some of
the probable theoretical consequences. Actual research came later. But the
relationship of that work to the deductions about brain processes drawn
from it remained a matter of intense debate. As Kohler himself later ad
mitted, at this stage and for a long time to come, isomorphism remained no
more than a postulate, which could become a t "ble hypothesis only on the
357
basis of a series of more or less speculat , assumptions.
This brings us to the object of those assumptions, the "reconstruction"
356 For the positive assessment, see James J. Gibson, "The Legacies of
Koffka's 'Principles'", Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 7 (1971), pp. 3-9;
for the more critical view, see Gundlach, Reiz, esp. pp. 87 ff.
357 Kohler, The Place of Value, pp. 175 f.
- 484 -
or "self-organization" process itself. Three interrelated problems emerged
here: anatomy, testability and reductionism. Kohler never really made it
clear whether he wished to take any one of the physical systems he described
as his model for the action of the optic sector. Although he developed the
"topography" concept from the system formed by the distribution of charges
on a conductor and their accompanying electromagnetic fields, the process
on which he based his actual deductions was the transfer of ions by diffu
sion. In fact, he recognized that potential leaps by themselves would not
provide enough electricity for his purposes; nor were static currents alone
enough, though such currents exist in the brain. Kohler speculated that
oscillating currents and potential shifts cooperated, but he conceded that he

358
did not know whether such "oscillations" really occur. Apparently all
this would then take on the structure of a single total "topography" in the
optic sector, including electric fields surrounding the current flows in
transverse pathways. Kohler insisted that all this was consistent with a
conducting "network" composed of different types of tissue. The important
point was only that the optic sector behave "homogeneously with respect to
359
its functions." Nonetheless, it seemed clear that this theory presupposed
a less differentiated visual cortex than neuroanatomy had actually discovered.
Kohler later said that he could not make his scenario more concrete
because he did not have access to the relevant anatomical literature when
he wrote .the book.^^ One reason why he relied so heavily on physical
analogies was to fill this gap. But there was more to it than that. The
358 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, e.g., p. 204.
360 Kohler, The Task of Gestalt Psychology, p. 96.
- 485 -
main reason was Kohler's genuine belief in what has since been called "phy-
sicalism" as a principle of explanation. He had introduced Nernst's laws
for ion transfer at the very beginning, he said, to show that the nervous
processes involved in visual perception could be treated without resorting

361
to specifically biological language. For this Kohler would be accused
time and again of reductionism, and this has sometimes been mixed with
attacks on the postulate of isomorphism. In the first important review of
the book, in 1921, Erich Becher argued that physiological processes may,
indeed must, be explicable by reference to physical laws; but this in no way
required that they actually be the same as or directly analogous to physic
al processes. In turn, physiological processes must fulfill certain require
ments, e.g., that of sufficient complexity, in order to account for psycho
logical phenomena; but this does not mean that the former must have exactly
the same structure as the latter. Even Kohler's own formulation, that phe
nomenal and brain events are "objectively related," does not require the li-
362
teral identity that Kohler seemed to be seeking.
In fact, this self-imposed procedure inhibited Kohler's theorizing
in a number of other ways as well. It was to escape a current dilemma in
physics that he placed a fundamental limitation upon the entire enterprise.
362 Erich Becher, "W. Kohlers physikalische Theorie der physiologischen

Vorgange, die der Gestaltwahmehmung zugrunde liegen," Zeitschrift
fur Psychologie, 87 (1921), pp. 1-144; cf. Keiler, "Isomorphie-Konzept
und Wertheimer-Problem," pp. 85-86. For the term "physicalism" and
additional discussion, see Richard Lowry, The Evolution of Psychologic
al Theory (Chicago, 1971), chap. 12.
- 486 -
Physics, he noted, was undergoing major changes, in which some of its
central concepts, such as space and time, were being reexamined, Por this
363
reason he eliminated time as a variable from his discussion. But
there was more to this than prudence on Kohler's part. "States indepen
dent of time" were the goal of his physical teleology. The difficulty was
that there are no perfect equilibria in organic life; nor is there really
a state of rest, or a perfectly stationary state. Kurt Koffka's later
response to the latter point was to say that in short periods the change
of conditions occurs so slowly "that the distributions are for all practic
al purposes stationary within short periods; such processes are called

,364
quasi-stationary and they can be treated as stationary ones. As for
the first point, Kohler responded to this himself by developing a dis
tinction between "closed" and "open" systems, which would eventually lead
to a productive application of physics to biology and contribute significant
ly to the development of "general systems theory."
Even so, it has proved difficult to directly establish either phy-
sicalist isomorphism in general or Kohler's holistic model of the optic sec
tor in particular. Kohler admitted that his notion of the difference be
tween "geometrical" and Afunctional" space in the brain would make it dif
ficult to test the theory, even if the appropriate apparatus were available.
When he attempted a direct proof in the 1930s and 1940s, he recognized
that modern physiology regards nervous conduction from the retina to the
brain as the work of isolated pathways. Thus the less radical of his two
- 487 -
alternatives would have to be accepted, and Gestalt interactions confined

365
to the retina and the visual cortex, respectively. In addition, he
assumed that phenomenal Gestalten and their physiological correlates did

366
have similar geometrical characteristics. He also shifted from processes
of ion transfer to direct currents in the cortex. He was able to prove
the existence of these, but it is still a matter of debate whether he show
ed, or could show, the exact correspondence of a current pattern to an
experienced phenomenal form. The theory has had a mixed reception; but a
number of neurophysiologists, most notably Karl Pribram, hold that at least
a modified form of field explanation can be worked into a "two process"
model of brain action.
Whatever one might say in criticism of it, Kohlers bold yet measured
theoretical stroke certainly did one important thing. It offered an intel
lectually coherent and highly provocative solution to both the philosophical
365 For Kohler's concession on the issue of conducting pathways, see, e.g.,
Gestalt Psychology, rev. ed., pp. 65, 71. Erich Becher had made this
point in "Wolfgang Kohlers Theorie," p. 30.
366 See, e.g., Kohler and D.A. Emery, "Figural After-Effects in the Third
Dimension of Visual Space," American Journal of Psychology, 60 (1947),
pp. 159-201. Cf. Pastore, Selective History, p. 404, n. 8.
367 See Karl Pribram, Languages of the Brain (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971),
pp. 110 ff. Cf. Michael Stadler, "Feldtheorie heute: von Wolfgang
Kohler zu Karl Pribram", Gestalt Theory, 3 (1981), pp. 185-99. For
Kohler's answer to his critics, see "Unresolved Problems in the Field
of Figural After-Effects " (1965), in Mary Henle, ed., Selected Papers,
pp. 274-302. For a detailed, highly critical discussion of attempts
to prove, or disprove, Kohler's theory, see Peter Keiler, "Isomorphie-
Konzept und Wertheimer-Problem, II," Gestalt Theory, 3 (1981), pp. 93-
128, esp. pp. 105 ff.
- 488 -
and scientific challenges faced by experimental psychology in its German
academic context. With his proof that not only the behavior of chickens,
but even inorganic processes possess characteristics normally attributed
to the highest products of the psyche, Kohler wrote,
very general considerations of recent philosophers about psychophy

sical parallelism, about 'the exact relation of brain processes
and states of consciousness despite their complete incompatibility'
lose all foundation. Parallelism in its customary form and its
enemies are in most cases agreed about the presupposition of this
incompatibility; but the world is by no means so senseless as that.368
Rurt Koffka was overjoyed at the prospect of not having to be defensive
about "real Gestalten" any longer. When he read the proofs of the book at
Kohler's request, he later recalled, it seemed to him like."a revelation.'!.
In the review he then wrote for Die Naturwissenschaften, he said that
Kohler had accomplished "a wonderful unification of two areas of knowledge
.... The future will show what this means for science and - let this be
369
expressly emphasized - also for philosophy."
6. Further Implications and Hopes for the Future: Wertheimer in Berlin
During these years, Max Wertheimer pursued his ideals in other ways.
When war was declared he was in Prague. In the early months of the war,
Max Brod later recalled, many intellectuals of the "Prague circle" met regu-
368 Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten, p. 234, n. 1. Emphasis mine.
369 Koffka, "Beginnings of Gestalt Theory" (cited above, n. 9), p. 4;

review of Die physischen Gestalten in Die Naturwissenschaften, 9
(1921), pp. 413, 414.
- 489 -
larly in the Cafe Arco to discuss, among other things, their opposition to
the conflict and the steps they could take to end it. During one of these
discussions, Brod and Franz Werfel hit upon the idea of publishing an ap
peal for peace in the leading newspaper of a neutral country. Naively taking
Italy's declared neutrality at face value, they decided for Milan's Corriere
della Sera. To seek support for their idea they went to the philosopher and
political activist Thomas Masaryk, whom they thought to be of "realistic,
humanistic" and "liberal" rather than narrowly nationalistic views. They
asked the slightly older Wertheimer to go with them, because he was a "rising
370
young colleague" of Masaryk's in philosophy who might be heard with respect.
As a newly-mobilized regiment paraded noisily outside, the trio ascended
the stairs to a small office behind a house on-Prague's Wenceslas Square,
where Masaryk's party newspaper had its offices. Despite the hectic atmo
sphere, Wertheimer was able to present their idea to Masaryk. He seemed to
listen patiently for awhile, but then interrupted curtly. Referring to
a German-speaking Jew who had just had a Czech woman arrested for making a
critical remark about the parade outside, he said, "you should rather see
to it that your countrymen cease their provocations." It was a rude awaken
ing for the young intellectuals. "He was right, of course," Brod later
remarked; "but he had spoken as a Czech nationalist," who saw the war, and
the defeat of the Central Powers, as a way of achieving Czech independence.
Wertheimer's humanistic and internationalist^ attitude did not pre
vent his being called in to do research on acoustical problems for the Ger-
370 For the account in this and the following paragraph, see Brod, Streit-
bares Leben (cited above, n. 5), pp. 136 ff., esp. pp. 142-43.
- 490 -
man army. The work, which began in the summer of 1915, was carried out in
the Berlin institute by an interdisciplinary group, including the physi
cists Max Bora and Felix Stumpf, son of Carl Stumpf, and the experimenting
psychologists Hans Hupp and Kurt Koffka, as well as Wertheimer and his
friend Erich von Hornbostel. One result was an instrument, subsequently
patented, for determining the precise direction from which a sound, such as
cannon fire, is coming. This was later jokingly dubbed the "Wertbostel",
371
after its inventors. In the course of this project, in 1916, Werthei
mer transferred his right to teach from Frankfurt to Berlin. There he
lectured on general philosophy, logic, epistemology and pedagogy, and also
took over the beginners* exercises in experimental psychology on a tempo-

372
rary basis, when Rupp was called to do military research in Austria.
In Berlin, too, he first met Albert Einstein. Their similar political and
moral outlooks and semi-bohemian life styles became the bases of a friend
ship that lasted until Wertheimer's death.
In these years they had the first of many conversations about the
371 For a description of the research and the instrument, see Wertheimer
and von Hornbostel, 'Uber die Wahmehmung der Schallrichtung," Sit-
ztmgsber. der Berliner Akad. der Wiss., 20 (1920), pp. 388-96. For
the name Wertbostel, see Michael Wertheimer, "Max Wertheimer" (cited
above, n. 1), p. 15. For the original personnel and the beginning
date of the project see Chronik der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu
Berlin, 29 (1915).
372 For Wertheimer's course offerings in this period, see Verzeichnis der
Vorlesungen gehalten an der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu Berlin,
1917 ff. For Stumpf1s request, and the Ministry's permission for
Wertheimer to take over Rupp's exercises, see Stumpf to Rektor, 7 July
1916, and Ministerium to Wertheimer, 25 August 1916 (copy), Univer-
sitatsarchiv der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Philosophische Fakul-
tat, Dekanat, Nr. 1439, Bl. 151, 155.
- 491 -
development of relativity theory, which Wertheimer later employed in a chapter
of this last work, Productive Thinking. Since his account of these talks was
written much later and probably includes material from subsequent conversations
373
as well, we will not present it here.
However, Wertheimer did develop the central theme of that book in this
period. He presented it in an essay entitled "Conclusion Processes in Pro
ductive Thinking," written for Stumpf's seventieth birthday celebration in
1918 but not published until 1920.^^ The naturalistic thrust of the argument
was in many ways the same as that of his 1912 paper on number concepts. Here,
however, the object of attack was no longer the "plus one" concept of arith
metic, but Aristotelian logic. The question he posed at the outset was "what
happens in genuinely productive thinking" - when a recognizable advance in
knowledge has been achieved? Traditional logic, epitomized in the classic
al syllogism "All men are mortal / Socrates is a man / Socrates is
mortal," purports to guarantee new knowledge by the prohibition of the pe-
titio principi, the rule that the conclusion may not be included in either
the major or the minor premise. Thus the knowledge that Socrates is a man,
373 On Wertheimers relations with Einstein, see Michael Wertheimer, "Re

lativity and Gestalt: A Note on Albert Einstein and Max Wertheimer,"
Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 1 (1965), pp. 86-87. Wertheimer states that
their conversations about the genesis of relativity theory began in
1916 in Productive Thinking, p. 213; cf. p. 223. Por a discussion
of the dating of Wertheimer's text and a critical analysis of his ac
count, see Arthur I. Miller, "Albert Einstein and Max Wertheimer: A
Gestalt Psychologist's View of the Genesis of Special Relativity Theo
ry," History of Science, 13 (1975), pp. 75-103.
374 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse im produktiven Denken" (1920), repr. in

Drei Abhandlungen, pp. 164-84. Citations are to the reprint.
- 492 -
or even that he is mortal, is not included, at least formally, in the state
ment that "all men are mortal." But the knowledge we obtain by obeying such
rules, Wertheimer alleged, often seems to us "empty" and "dead", the opera-
375
tions involved "like the work of a clerk in a registry."
In Wertheimers opinion Mill was correct to contend that statements
like "all men are mortal" are only "inductions in disguise." We cannot real
ly say such things without knowing something about Socrates. But even if
we grant, on whatever basis, that there can be statements that contain all
the characteristics of a subject, whether we know them or not,
then naturally no new* knowledge in the genuine [pragnant] sense

of the word is possible. ... From the point of view of our problem,
this is a logic for the good Lord [eine Logik fur den lieben Gott],
or, more exactly, for a scholar who basically already knows and
has seen through everything and only orders and adjusts the form
of the presentation. But for truly forward-moving knowledge this
kind of view is simply crooked [schrage].376
Wertheimer argued that there are other logical operations besides "the
one with the knife" - i.e.,, analytics - and "the one with the sack" - the
logic of classes. To discover these, he called for a "logical-genetic treat
ment" focusing upon "real processes, as they actually - fortunately - occur
in life" and avoiding "the traditional set [Einstellung] on mere validity re
lations." In particular, such an approach would take as its object not an
abstract entity "all men", which possesses certain characteristics by defini
tion, and the equally abstract figure "Socrates", which allegedly possesses
some or one of these characteristics, but "the Socrates whose known and di-
375 Wertheimer," Schlussprozesse," pp. 164-65.
376 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," pp. 167, 170. Emphasis in the original.
- 493 -
rectly determinable characteristics are actually given. A change in these
"given characteristics" he suggested, could produce a kind of feedback ef
fect upon the premises with which we began, a restructuring of the situation
377
that leads in turn to "the grasp of the inner state of affairs.""^
Wertheimer gave vivid indications of what this process was like in
the following anecdotes. (1) A busy lawyer has the habit of burning old
files after a certain number of years. One day he looks for an -important
receipt relevant to case B, which is currently being tried, but cannot find
it. He thinks back - what was the receipt about? - and suddenly remembers
that its contents related to case A. But the files for case A - "oh, God!" (2)
Cajus and his friend Xaver are members of the executive committee of their
club., but they find the meetings dull and have stopped attending, except for
the annual meeting at which the statement of accounts is discussed. One day
Cajus returns from a trip and finds a note reporting a unanimous decision
reached at a recent executive committee meeting. He becomes angry and re
solves to telephone his friend, but reads further and finds: "The decision
was reached at the annual accounts meeting, which was held earlier than usual
this year. The statement of accounts was approved after a long report from
..378
Xaver.
What happens in such situations? Consistent with the epistemological
vocabulary he had begun to develop in 1913, Wertheimer called the process
"recentering". Clearly this was something quite different from Mill*s in
ductions, in which repeated experience of a given state of affairs leads us
377 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," pp. 165, 169, 181.
378 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," pp. 173-74.
- 494 -
to make a general statement about it. The second example might seem at first
to fit Mill's framework; a negative instance leads to a revision of a
previously derived conclusion. For Wertheimer, however, this gave a rather
poor picture of what was actually going on. In fact the major premise -
in the second example, this would be "Xaver and 1 agree" - is "turned upside
down" (umgekrempelt). "For a moment two premises are there side by side,
then suddenly a 'click', a 'snapping together' [Einschnappen]. What a pro
cess! (What?! Xaver was there?! Xaver too - is that possible? - aha - so ...)"
Thus "something new" is seen in the subject, "and the old concept revolu
tionized." This occurs frequently in the study of history, Wertheimer claim
ed, as the way we view a historical figure or event is radically changed

379
when we are confronted with new facts about it.
Such "recenterings" can also occur on less emotionally charged ground,
for example in the solutions to difficult mathematical problems. Consider
the task of finding the sum of the external angles of the polygon shown
in Figure 19. One method would be to divide the figure into triangles con
structed from a mid-point, then to compute the external angles from these.
If we eliminate this possibility and look at the situation from a "principled"
point of view (mSglichst prinzipiell), Wertheimer claimed, we can see the
external angles as a series of right angles constructed from the sides of
the figure, as shown, and a series of "turning angles" (Drehwinkel), indi
cated by the symbol 5. To complete or "close" the figure, we need to com-

o
pute these. But if we realize that a complete "turn" equals 360 , "sudden
ly the situation is clear." Here, too, a shift in our view of the subject
379 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," p. 174.
- 495 -
yields an. "insight" that leads to more than a technically correct solution
of the problem. 'The concept that I have of a thing is often in such pro-
380
cesses not only enriched, but changed, improved, deepened.
Such examples, and Wertheimer's emphasis on visual metaphors, might
well remind us of Kohlers "intelligence tests". This was obviously not
accidental. In all these cases thinking is closely allied with both percep
tion and action. In the case of the polygon, where the right angles, for
example, could be constructed either in ones head or on paper, we might
call it active perception. Further, in all the examples the process is dis
continuous in the way that it was for the apes - first an attempt to con
tinue using the old concept, which is blocked, then a pause for active re
flection, then the sudden discovery of or shift into the new conception.
Perhaps Wertheimer was encouraged by KShlers work, which he must have read
by that time, to extend his epistemological moael to thinking in this man
ner. But the influnce was clearly mutual. It was Wertheimers conception
of the organization of the perceptual field around a functional "center"
that lay at the basis of Kohler's conception of "insight", and his 1912
essay on number concepts had provided numerous examples of active, functional
ly centered perception.
Though geometry problems offer effective illustrations of such pro
cesses, Wertheimer's other examples made it clear that he saw no distinction
here between the natural sciences and the human studies. The history of
380 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," pp. 178-79, 175. Emphasis in the origin

al. For a richly detailed report of Wertheimers thinking as he solved
this problem, see Productive Thinking, chap. 8 , esp. pp. 195 ff.
- 496 -
Figure 19: External angles of a polygon
Source: Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse, p. 179.
science, he said, provides many examples of intuitive "recentering" result
ing in significant theoretical progress, such as the history of the con
ception of inertia. Such accomplishments are often thought to be products
of fortunate intuition or of irreducible genius, but accident or 'mere psy
chology" are not the whole explanation. Rather, he suggested, we are deal-
ling here with shifts in "the qualitative hierarchy [Eigenschaftshierarchie]
of a concept"; and "the formal moments involved" can be grasped "in specific
laws." Often, it is a question of which moment, "from which part shall the
remaining parts be seen?" Choice of a different structural viewpoint can
then lead to "penetration into the state of affairs, grasp of a specific
inner structural connection [Strukturzusaimi.enha-ng] of a whole; to the grasp

381
of inner necessities.
381 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," pp. 180-81.
- 497 -
As an example of the "specific laws" he had in mind, Wertheimer could
have cited the base system, as he had in 1912. But it was not clear how
such a set of strictly formal rules would help to grasp "inner structural
connections" of the kind Wertheimer meant. Also problematic from this per
spective was what might be called the dynamic dimension - in the case of
the polygon, the urge, need or will to solve the problem. For this Werthei
mer shifted from structural to functional language; and the question be
came "on what aspects of S [the subject] must I concentrate: Or: how must
I apprehend S sub specie the task [Aufgabe] here before me?" With this
Wertheimer invoked the terminology of the Wurzburg school, especially the
thinking Kulpe had employed in his experiments on abstraction, already de
scribed. The case of the lawyers receipt was an exact parallel to the exper
imental situation Kulpe had constructed, in which the same colors were seen
differently according to the task prescribed by the experimenter. Kulpe had
shown that such operations were subject to empirical laws. By doing this,
however, he thought he had also opened the way to solving a thorny logical
and epistemological problem. Wertheimers attitude toward his examples and
their philosophical significance was little different. One could claim, he
said, that his examples are only cases in which the same object appears in
different ways. In the example of the lawyer, however, the receipt as
"part" of case A is not only psychologically but "logically different" from
the receipt as "part" of case B. The same applies, in the end, to Cajus
former friend Xaver; "an abyss" separates the Xaver before and the Xaver
after the "recentering" process. Here, as elsewhere in Gestalt theory, the

382
logic of structure and that of function merge.
382 Wertheimer, "Schlussprozesse," pp. 175, 181. Emphasis in the original.
- 498 -
Evidently, for Wertheimer the distinction between logic and the psy
chology of knowledge was flexible or nonexistent. For the mathematician
or analytical logician, there is no reason why the sum of the external angles
of a polygon cannot be found in the manner Wertheimer had rejected, so long as
it led to a solution. From their viewpoint, Wertheimers implication that
his solution offered a better graspof the essence of the figure might be
interesting psychologically, but it was logically irrelevant. Another dis
tinction Wertheimer seemed to have blurred was that between meaning and signi
ficance, or sense and reference (Sinn and Bedeutung), commonplace in Conti
nental logic and central to Frege's logic of propositions. In the example
of Cajus and Xaver, for instance, we can say that in sentences including
the name "Xaver" that word has a different referent or meaning before and
after the "recentering" process, and that the sentence therefore has a dif
ferent "sense". But the logical rules for the construction of such sentences
do not change on that account.
Why then did Wertheimer insist upon the logical significance of his
processes? The key to the difficulty is Wertheimer's immanentist epistemology,
according to which we directly apprehend real, structural-functional relations
that make a difference for the "practical logic" of our thinking and acting.
Philosophy, he implied, ought to concern itself with such real structures
and processes. Accordingly, his "major premises" are all empirical state
ments. However, his version of naturalism could bring him into epistemologic
al difficulties similar to those Kohler encountered at a different level.
In the case of Cajus and Xaver, Wertheimer had said that "an abyss" separates
the Xaver before and the Xaver after the "recentering" process. Yet the
person Xaver actually remains the same. If Wertheimer had meant to say that
- 499 -
it was a different Xaver in fact, and not only for Cajus, he would have fallen
hopelessly into Berkeleyan idealism. He was therefore quite correct to say
that it was "the concept of a thing" that changed, not the thing itself.
Still, he offered no way of designating "Xaverj" and "Xaver^" such that
it might be possible to read off the change from one to the other as part
of a coherent logical system. Logicians might well concede that such shifts
were important enough in practical life, and that the processes behind them
might be fit subjects for psychological research. But without such a notation
system, or a clear idea of how one could be developed, it was bound to be
unclear to them just what significance they were supposed to have for logic.
Implicitly, Wertheimer's paper was directed against the presupposi
tion that Aristotelian logic offered not only rules for the construction and
proof of propositons, but also an adequate descriptive psychology of thought.
It was against this assumption that Mill had reacted with his contention
that universal statements were inductions in disguise. But his alternative
was to substitute inductive logic for that of Aristotle as a paradigm
for thinking. It was in reaction against Mill, in turn, that formalist
logicians such as Frege sought to separate logic from psychology altogether.
Husserl did not go so far in his Logical Investigations. His strategy for
keeping the two together was to seek "experiences of truth". Yet he accept
ed Frege's priorities. His aim was validity, not genesis, and by 1918 he
had long since moved almost completely into the transcendental camp. Wert
heimer's paper was directed against all of these positions. He defended
naturalism against formalist rationalism; but his epistemology allowed him
to develop a naturalism more encompassing than that of Mill, without succumb
ing to relativism, and a realism more immediate than that of Husserl, without
- 500 -
having to turn in the end to idealism. With this he hoped to grasp not
only the experience of truth, but truth itself, understood as the essence
in the appearances.
Only a few years later, while doing psychological research, Karl Pop
per also concluded that Aristotelian logic could not be an adequate model for
the psychology of thought. He considered making a dissertation of this
work, he later recalled, but found that the members of the Wurzburg school,
especially Selz and Buhler, had already developed such a critique. We have
already noted both Selz1s position and Lindworsky1s specification of the
processes involved in syllogistic reasoning, especially the sudden, pre-
conscious "recognition of relations. As early as 1907 Buhler had spoken
of an "aha-experience" that accompanied the comprehension of a difficult
or ambiguous sentence. However, as Popper recognized, all of this work had
been devoted to reproductive, not productive thinking. He concluded that
it is impossible to develop a logically coherent theory of "successful think

383
ing". It was this conviction, in part, that led him to make his celebrat
ed distinction between the psychology and the logic of discovery, which was
itself a descendent of Lotze!s distinction between genesis and validity.
Wertheimer hoped to break through such dichotomies by developing a "Gestalt
logic" that would be derived from "genetic" analyses of real thinking, but
could nonetheless specify the formal principles involved and thus attain ge
neral validity.
This combination of an open-ended program with high hopes for the
383 Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (La Salle,

111., 1976), p. 76.
- 501 -
future was also characteristic of Wertheimer's other activities and associa
tions in this period. Among his associates was a student, Karl August
Wittfogel, who later became a leading social theorist and expert on the Far
East. Wittfogel was active at the time in a dissident left-wing faction
of the Wandervogel youth movement; but his Marxism was only beginning to
mature. He later characterized his views then as "a mixture of Karl Marx
and Laotse." Perhaps it was the second half of this combination that appeal
ed to Wertheimer. At any rate, he became for Wittfogel "first a teacher,
then a friend." It was Wertheimer, Wittfogel .recalled, who introduced him
to Kathe Kollwitz, who began in these years to speak out openly against the
war. Einstein's involvement in socialist and pacifist groups is too well
known to need recounting here. Whether Wertheimer participated directly
in his friends' political activities is not known; but such associations
contrast strongly with the nationalistic, even annexationist stance taken by

384
the vast majority of the German professoriate.
384 On the political views of German academics in this period, see Hans
Peter Bleuel, Deutschlands Bekenner: Professoren zwischen Kaiserreich
und Diktatur (Bern, 1968), and Klaus Schwabe, Wissenschaft und Kriegs-
moral; Hochschullehrer und die politischen Grundfragen des Ersten
Weltkrieges (Gottingen, 1969). For Einsteins views, see, e.g., Ronald
Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (New York, 1971).
Kathe Kollwitz's most vehement anti-war statement in this period is
"An Richard Dehrnel!" Vorwarts, 30 October 1918, repr. in Hans Kollwitz,
ed., Ich sah die Welt in liebevollen Blicken. Kathe Kollwitz: Ein Le-
ben in Selbstzeugnissen (1968), repr. Wiesbaden, n.d., pp. 189-90.
For Wittfogel's recollections of Wertheimer, Kollwitz and his own poli
tics, see "Die hydraulische Gesellschaft und das Gespenst der asiati-
schen Restauration: Gesprach mit Karl August Wittfogel," in Matthias
Greffrath, Die Zerstorung einer Zukunft: Gesprache mit emigrierten
Sozialwissenschaftlem (Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1979), pp. 304-05.
- 502 -
However, allegiance to liberal humanist ideals did not necessarily
imply opposition to the entire established order. Wertheimer and Einstein
made this clear in an incident that occurred shortly after the collapse
of the monarchy and the outbreak of revolution in November of 1918. Soon
after the revolt began, a student council (Studentenrat) was formed at the
University of Berlin, modelled on the workers' and soldiers' councils that
had been organized across the country. One of the Berlin student council's
first acts was to depose and arrest the rector and other university offi
cials. Einstein was asked to negotiate with the students because his po
litical views were thought to give him some influence with the more radical
among them. He invited Wertheimer and Max Born to accompany him to the Reichs
tag building, where the council met. According to Born's later account, the
three had difficulties getting through the crowds surrounding the building
and past the cordon of soldiers that guarded it, but "eventually someone re
cognized Einstein and all doors were opened." Before they could present
their business at the council session, however, the chairman asked Einstein
for his opinion of the new regulations for students that had just been pro
posed. As B o m recalled:
Einstein thought for several minutes, and then said something like
this: 'I have always thought that the German universities' most
valuable institution is academic freedom, whereby the lecturers are
in no way told what to teach, and the students are able to choose
which lectures to attend, without much supervision and control.
Your new statutes seem to abolish all this and to replace it by
precise regulations. I would be very sorry if the old freedom were
to come to an end.' Whereupon the high and mighty young gentleman
sat in perplexed silence.385
385 The Bora-Einstein letters: Correspondence Between Albert Einstein

and Max and Hedwig B o m from 1916 to 1955, with Commentaries by
Max B o m , trans. Irene B o m (New York, 1971), p. 150.
- 503 -
Such views must indeed have been perplexing, coming from someone who was
known for his pacifist convictions, and who had accepted German citizenship
only reluctantly when he was appointed to his professorship in Berlin
The council decided that it had no authority in the matter and sent
the petitioners to the newly-appointed President of the Republic, Friedrich
Ebert, who then "wrote a few words" in their behalf to the appropriate minis
ter. With that their business was soon concluded. In contrast to Werthei
mer's earlier attempt to intervene in political affairs, in Prague, this
venture was a complete success. "We left the Chancellor's palace in high
spirits," Boro wrote, "feeling that we had taken part in a historical event
and hoping to have seen the last of Prussian arrogance, the Junkers, and
the reign of the aristocracy, of cliques of civil servants and of the mili-
386
tary, now that German democracy had won." Evidently Einstein and Born
believed that democracy and the German ideal of Wissenschaft could be
combined, that the authority, status and "freedom of science" that had once
been a welcome gift from above could be retained under the new regime. Per
haps we can suppose that Wertheimer shared such hopes, and Einstein's
opinion of academic freedom.
For what purpose did Wertheimer wish to use "the old freedom"? What
specifically was the connection between Wertheimer's political stance, in
so far as we may conclude anything about it from the evidence at hand, and
his philosophical position? His concern for the highest achievements of
creative thinking, which continued throughout his life, could easily be
construed as elitism. However, Wertheimer did not limit his examples to the
386 The Bora-Einstein Letters, p. 151.
- 504 -
thought of great scientists. In his work on number concepts he had already
made it clear that for him the solutions that "primitive" and "civilized"
people discover to the mathematical problems posed by everday life are in
every way as admirable, productive and "beautiful" as those allegedly higher
achievements. Both are part of the same continuum, and the dynamics of
functional "centering" and "recentering" involved are the same.
This emphasis on real processes, and the sharpness of his attack on
traditonal logic as "empty" and "dead", indicated that Wertheimers philo
sophical naturalism was informed by an inseparable combination of allegiance
to moral and aesthetic values and the commitment to discover them in life,
not to impose them on life from above or without. In this view, the
"higher" values can no longer be the exclusive property of a privileged aca
demic elite. In Germany, that elite had identified itself for decades with
its social role as servants, or trainees, of the imperial state. Werthei
mers naturalism offered a way of showing that this was not necessary, that
allegiance to "higher" values, rightly understood., was fully compatible with
a commitment to democracy.
Wertheimer stated his personal commitment to philosophy in life quite
clearly in a brief contribution he made in 1918 to a small volume entitled
Das judische Prag, which also included contributions from Max Brod and other
members of the "Prague circle":
In recent years signs of strong spiritual life have come again and
again from the youth of Prague. As often as I now think of Prague,
I remember the report about the Prague School for Refugees - a joy
ful sign of active, heart-felt work - in ancient words, of work
toward God [zu Gott zu]. These are also my wishes and hopes for
the youth of Prague; as it was expressed long ago in the Jewish
will, that God should live in every daily deed, in the powerful pre
sent [im kraftigem DiesseitsI. That seems to be coming again often;
- 505 -
and much from Prague: heartfelt work in the midst of reality,

toward life [mitten im Wirklichen, dem Leben zu].387
Clearly, for Wertheimer there was no opposition between philosophical na
turalism and religion; but his Jewishness had little in common with orthodox
piety. The idea of daily life as a ritual informed from without by God's
commandments, characteristic of traditional Judaism, had become a commit
ment to "the powerful present" much like the Jewish existentialism that
Martin Buber was beginning to develop at just this time.
Wertheimer expressed similar hopes at the end of his laudatio for
Stumpf's seventieth birthday. Here, however, the language and the values
were those of German philosophy. He ended his speech with an exhortation
Stumpf had written in memory of Lotze the year before:
Bury the battleaxe - turn again to the serious tasks of metaphysics,

the by no means exhausted questions of body and mind, life and
death, law and freedom, development, infinity. Forge ahead [schafft
weiter] on the reconstruction of a world view, do not let yourselves
be put to shame by the physicists, arm yourselves with all the weapons
of natural science in order to proclaim nonetheless and yet again
the supreme position of the spiritual Ldes GeistigenJ and the good in
the world; that is what humanity expects from you, if it is to awaken
to new life from its most difficult crisis as from a terrible dream.388
"If we may only be allowed to hope," he added, "perhaps to be able to make
a small contribution there as well."
387 Wertheimer, "Vom Geistesleben des Prager Judentums," in Das judische

Prag: Eine Sammelschrift (Prague, 1918; reissued Kronberg/Taunus,
1978), p. 16.
388 Stumpf, "Zum Gedachtnis Lotzes," Kant Studien, 22 (1917), p. 26,

quoted by Wertheimer in "Feier zu Carl Stumpfs 70. Geburtstag" (cited
in part one, n. 136). Emphasis mine.
CONCLUSION
From the institutional point of view, at least, experimental psycholo
gy in Berlin benefitted from the German revolution. In the spring of 1920
the Berlin institute was moved to new quarters in a wing of the former Im
perial Palace, near the university's main building - a move that more than
doubled its size. At the same time, its budget was increased more than 600
per cent, from 4,400 to 28,200 marks, a figure almost as large as that for
the Physical Institute in the same year (30,274 marks). The combined bud
gets of the Psychological Institute and the Psychophysical Seminar in Leip
zig at that time totalled 3,750 marks. Since the budget of the University
of Berlin's other scientific institutes remained the same as they had been
before the First World War, despite the severe inflation that had occurred
in the meantime, we could say that the Psychological Institute's budget
was cut the least, in real terms. Ministry correspondence indicates, how
ever, that the sudden jump in support was not an adjustment for inflation
but a reflection of the cost of maintaining its much larger physical plant.*
With this move the Berlin institute became, with the laboratory at Columbia
University in New York, one of the two largest psychological laboratories in
the world.
In August of 1920 Stumpf, complaining of weakening eyesight, resign
ed the directorship of the institute and designated Wolfgang Kohler as his
1 For the budget figures see Minerva, Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt, 25 (1921),
p. 73. Stumpf stated that the new institute had "more than twenty-five
rooms" in "Carl Stumpf," p. 403. For evidence that the budget increase
was intended to compensate for increased maintenance costs, not for in
flation, see Zent. Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76 7a Sekt. 2 tit. X Nr. 150, Bnd.
3, Bl. 37 ff., 154.
- 506 -
- 507 -
o
representative. He did not, however, resign his professorship. Though
he provided a physicianss statement to attest his disability he had another
motive for proceeding as he did. The new education minister in Prussia,
Erich Becker, had proposed to introduce mandatory retirement for profes
sors at age sixty-eight as part of his comprehensive reform plan for the
Prussian universities. At seventy-three, Stumpf was already well past that
limit; he knew that he would have to step down soon. Since the directorship
of the institute was not a teaching position, he had the right to designate
a representative on his own account; the approval of the Ministry and of the
Philosophical Faculty in November of the same year were mere formalities.
As he wrote in August to a Ministry official assigned to university affairs,
Stumpf named Kohler because he had him in mind as his successor and wished
to make him better acquainted with the members of the faculty and the insti-
3
tute staff. This is probably what he meant when he told the board of the
Samson Foundation in November that "a state position" might soon be in the
offing for Kohler.
Stumpfs support of Kohler as his successor was not as strange as it
might seem in the light of his students opposition to the master on a wide
variety of issues. In fact, it was rather like Lotze's earlier support of
G.E. Muller for his chair, and of Stumpf himself for other professorships,
2 Stumpf's letter of resignation, dated 4 August.1920, is in Zent. Staats

archiv, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150, Bnd. 3, Bl. 47.A copy, dated
16 October 1920, is in Universitatsarchiv der Humboldt-Universitat zu
Berlin (henceforth UAdHUzB), Philosophische Fakultat, Dekanat, Nr. 1469,
Bl. 159. A copy of Kohler's appointment letter from the Ministry,
dated 19 November 1920, is in ibid., Bl. 160.
3 Stumpf to "Sehrgeehrter Herr Geheimrat (probably Erich Wende), 17 Au

gust 1920, Zent. Staatsarchiv, Rep. 76, Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150, Bnd. 3,
Bl. 49-50.
- 508 -
even though both Muller and Stumpf had criticized their teacher's theory
of local signs. For Stumpf and for Lotze, the common goal was an empirical
ly based, scientifically founded philosophy; careful criticism presented
with the intention of advancing that aim could be more welcome to them than
uncritical support. As Stumpf wrote in his autobiography. "I have never
endeavored to found a school in the strict sense . I have found it almost pleas
anter, certainly more interesting, to have my students reach different con
clusions than- to have them merely corroborate my theorems. I derive all
the more joy and gratitude from the loyalty of the young people who, in
the same scientific spirit, but by their own independent plans, continue the
work of research."^
In addition to Kohler's youth and relative lack of teaching experience,
one other obstacle stood in the way of Stumpf's plan - the Ministry's poli
cy of appointing only men to professorships in Berlin who had already been
called to chairs elsewhere. That obstacle was overcome when Kohler was named
in August, 1921, to succeed G.E. Muller in Gottingen, who also had to resign
because of the new retirement rule. Kohler went through all of the corres
ponding formalities, but by the end of the month he had been appointed to
represent Stumpf in Berlin not only as institute director, but in his teaching
capacity as well. Though he continued to receive his salary from Gottingen,
he was apparently there only once during his one-semester tenure.^
4 Stumpf, "Carl Stumpf," p. 441.
5 A copy of Kohler's appointment to Gottingen, dated 3 August 1921, is in

Universitatsarchiv der Georg-August-University Gottingen, Universitats-
kuratorium, Philosophische Fakultat XIV.IV. A.a. 281. The record of
the reimbursement for Kohler's single trip to Gottingen, dated 10 Septem
ber 1921, is in the same file. A copy of Kohler's appointment to represent
- 509 -
After this Kohlers appointment to Stumpfs chair in February,
1922, was a foregone conclusion. The Philosophical Faculty had already
recommended him first, far ahead of Karl Buhler, in February of 1921. In
addition to his outstanding research record and his proven administrative
ability, the facultys recommendation particularly emphasized Kohlers
interest in general philosophical questions such as the problem of body
and mind, and his ability to teach other philosophical specialties, such
as the history of philosophy and natural philosophy, in addition to psy
chology.^ Natural philosophy was expressly included among the fields he
was to offer in his letter of appointment. When a Ministry official call
ed the position "the professorship for psychology" during the negotiations,
the facultys response was clear:
The full professorship ... to which Professor Stumpf was called

from Munich was designated a professorship of philosophy, and
has since been understood as such by the Ministry as well as the
faculty. The faculty regards the change of designation as object
ively unjustified [sachlich nicht gerechtfertigt] and asks that
the previous title be retained.7
Stumpf both as professor and as institute director, dated 31 August

1921, is in UAdHUzB, Philosophische Fakultat, Dekanat, Nr. 1470,
Bl. 148.
6 The faculty's recommendation is in UAdHUzB, Philosophische Fakultat,

Dekanat, Nr. 1469, Bl. 439-45. Cf. esp. Bl. 439-40, 442-43. A copy
of Kohler's letter of appointment is in ibid., Bl. 153.
7 Fakultat to Ministerium, 2 August 1921, Zent. Staatsarchiv Rep. 76 Va

Sekt. 2 Tit. IV Nr. 6 8 A, Bl. 155-56. The statement to which the fa
culty reacted is in Zent. Staatsarchiv, ibid., Bl. 129.
Apparently the Ministry considered other candidates as well. In an
interview with the author on 5 October 1980, Gunter Anders stated
that his father, William Stem, told him in the 1930s that he had been
invited to Berlin to negotiate for the chair, and was offered the po
sition if he would clarify "a small matter," that is, if he would give
up his Judaism. This he refused to do. Such a policy would explain
why Max Wertheimer was apparently not considered for the position at
- 51 0 -
With Kohler's appointment to direct a greatly expanded institute, and
with the foundation in 1921 of a new journal called Psychologische Forschung,
with Kohler, Koffka and Wertheimer as three of the five co-editors, a new
stage in the history of Gestalt psychology began. We might call it the stage
of establishment and reproduction; for the construction of a network of in
stitutions to train younger scientists and to puolish their own and their
teacher's results gave Gestalt theory the concrete contours of a scientific
"school". Yet the fundamental continuity with the past was evident from
the beginning. If anything, the complex of structures involved here was a
return to the scientific style of Wundt's institute. The new journal was
called "Psychological Research"; but the head of the laboratory from which
most of its contributions would come had fulfilled in his own way the re
quirements Wundt had summarized in 1913. He had presented himself, and had
been accepted, both as an experimenting psychologist and as a "philosophical
ly educated man, filled with philosophical interests."
Seen in this light, Gestalt theory was in every respect a revolt from
within, despite its radicalism. In the course of their scientific sociali
zation, the Gestalt theorists absorbed and fully accepted the terms of the
challenge set for experimental psychology in its German academic environ
ment. Like other experimenting psychologists, they entered the field with
the hope of finding empirical solutions to long-standing philosophical pro
blems. Precisely this .hope was firmly rejected by many of the leading philo
sophers of their day, who contended that the essential qualities of conscious-
all, though he was older than Kohler. However, Wertheimer's short list
of publications and particularly the lack of any major work in systematic
philosophy would have counted against him in any case.
- 511 -
ness are beyond the reach of experimentation. Given the inability of cur
rent psychological theory to deal adequately with the problems of thought
and form, it must have seemed to some as though they were right. The intel
lectual and academic-political struggle within philosophy reached its height
just as the new generation began doing independent research. When the
struggle came to a head with the philosophers' petition of 1912, it became
clear, if it had not been before, that the outcome of the controversy would
have concrete consequences both for experimental psychology, and for the
future of experimenting psychologists.
In response to this situation, the Gestalt theorists tried to develop
an approach to psychology that would overcome the dualism within philosophy,
a scientific world-view that would support progress in both fields without
rejecting experimental methods. That approach involved fundamental trans
formations at all levels of psychological theory and method; but there were
important dimensions of continuity in change. Theirs was a common effort,
and each of them developed his thinking in close relation to that of the
others. But Koffka, Kohler and Wertheimer had different intellectual styles;
thus their contributions to that effort differed.
Max Wertheimer had a profound metaphysical vision that penetrated
and formed his research at every juncture. That vision lay behind the epistemo-
logical shift to immanent structuralism which was the core of Gestalt theory.
He showed concretely what that vision revealed first in his essay on number
concepts, then experimentally in his demonstration of the phi phenomenon.
Finally, after explicating the new view in more detail in his lectures, he
began to develop "Gestalt laws", including the law of Pragnanz. Just what
these laws entailed remained unclear in 1920. But to Koffka and Kohler, at
- 512 -
least, they offered additional hope that Wertheimer's psychological ontology
could be empirically verified in a way that would lead to further research.
Wertheimer described all of this as a search for the "essence" of the given.
We could call it Stumpf *s experimental phenomenology with a different episte-
mological basis.
For Wertheimer, however, "essential" and natural-scientific laws were
clearly not mutually exclusive. Part of his search for the "essence" of
the given was the attempt to construct "crucial demonstrations" that would
have the same effect as crucial experiments in physics. Moreover, he propos
ed a hypothetical-deductive model of "structured whole processes" in the brain
that would underlie the psychically given, and claimed that this model could
have the same ordering and predictive significance for psychological research
as hypotheses in natural science. His "crucial demonstrations" thus promised
to be "crucial" at both the descriptive and the explanatory levels. All of
this went far beyond Stumpf's methods, which could not promise the same
dynamic relationship between description and explanation. Thus Wertheimer
was the founder of Gestalt theory both as a new empirical epistemology and
as a fundamental methodological reform in psychology. However, his brilliance,
like that of many visionary thinkers, came through best in conversation and
in lectures. The vibrant hopes that his new approach awakened were trans
lated into experimental and systematic practice mainly by Koffka, Kohler
and their students. In the process they enriched and further developed
Wertheimers vision.
Wolfgang Kohler was highly productive both as an experimenter and
as a theoretician, and he was every inch the sophisticated professional at
both levels. Though outwardly cautious and particularly careful to present
- 513 -
bis ideas and findings in a way that could be understood and accepted
by older colleagues, be did not hesitate to draw bold conclusions. He
exhibited this intellectual style in his first research papers, and it
was equally evident in his first contribution to Gestalt theory. This
was his thorough destruction of the "constancy hypothesis", followed by
the "tentative suggestion" that the conventional distinction between peri
pheral, or physiological sensations and central, or psychological opera
tions upon sensation, would have to be discarded if sensory psychology were
to do justice to "the everyday perception of things." Kohlers apparent
caution was a means to an end, his way of gaining a hearing for new ideas.
The way he transformed Stumpf's experimental phenomenology in his work
with animals to show that classical empiricism was an inadequate basis
for the construction of evolutionary hierarchies, and the way he used his
training in natural science to extend Wertheimers ontology from the psyche
to the external world showed, however, that he was in many respects the
boldest and most radical thinker of the three.
Kurt Koffka was a professional experimental psychologist caught in
a social setting not exactly designed for him. In his research with his
students in GieBen on apparent motion, he showed how Wertheimers model
of theory and practice could be developed into a program of cumulative re-
-search. In the main, however, he developed, defended and applied Werthei
mers approach conceptually, with a will to system. First methodological
ly, with his destinction between "descriptive" and "functional" concepts,
then more substantively in his proclamation that psychological analysis
of the traditional sort was "impossible", and finally in his systematic
polemic against the Graz school, be brought out the implications of the new
- 514 -
view for the psychology of perception. The most important of these was
the idea of the "total stimulus" as an ordered arrangement of real objects
rather than a collection of punctiform nervous excitations. This trans
formation of the stimulus concept lent positive content to Kohlers negative
ly formulated "tentative suggestion." Further-reaching still, Koffka grant
ed equal epistemological status to these formed stimuli and to the forming
functions, both psychical and behavioral, of which they are the objects;
and he attributed both to "structured whole processes" in the brain. With
this the establishment of Gestalt theory as a psychological system was
essentially complete. With this, too, Koffka took the step, in a tentative
way, that Kohler then took more firmly - the extension of Gestalt charact
eristics not only to physiological processes, but to real objects in the
external world as well.
Kohlers observations on apes seemed to provide, nearly simultaneous,
independent confirmation of Koffkas conflation of form and function. The
"curves of solution" in the intelligent behavior of these animals corres
ponded, he thought, to the functional structure of their visual field.
In part to deal with these observations, Kohler transformed the empirical
parallelism of G.E. Muller's psychophysical axioms to an isomorphism of
organized structures, and developed a holistic theory of brain action to
account for them. Koffka's statements had encouraged Kohler to take these
steps, but Koffka himself kept his wish for a monistic world-view in the
background at first. In the foreground was his desire for a methodological
ly and theoretically coherent system of psychology based upon a consistent
philosophy of science.
- 515 -
Yet Koffka did not keep his hopes entirely hidden, even in his earl
iest systematic work. Later, after Kohler provided the ontological support,
he stated the philosophical implications of Gestalt theory quite clearly.
Central to the legitimation problem of psychology in its German context was
the attack by Husserl and others upon epistemological "psychologism". Ge
stalt theory's answer to that attack was that it applied only to a psycholo
gy based upon sensationalist and empiricist assumptions. As Koffka put
it, it did not apply to "our psychologism - if our theory can rightly be
given this name." For in Gestalt theory,
psychological and physiological or rather psychophysical processes

are organized according to intrinsic or internal relations. This
point ... means that in our theory psychology and logic, existence
and subsistence, even, to some extent, reality and truth, no longer
belong to entirely different realms or universes of discourse be
tween which no intelligible relation exists.8
Thus the answer to general philosophical questions was not to reject psy
chological fact or to declare it irrelevant - to accept the distinction
between the genesis and the validity of ideas as a dividing line between
disciplines - but to reinvestigate psychological fact on a new basis.
Put another way, the Gestalt theorists shared the common nineteenth-century
belief that empirical research could and should be used to establish or
refute philosophical positions. The attempt to establish an "empirical
metaphysics" was the original basis for experimental psychology's claim to
legitimacy as a philosophical discipline. With their new epistemology of
reason, or immanent order, in the appearances, the Gestalt theorists offer
ed a way to accomplish the task at which their predecessors had failed.
8 Koffka, Principles, pp. 570-71.
- 516 -
Kohler's extension, of Wertheimer's psychological ontology to physics
meant the end of another significant dualism. As Koffka proclaimed, "the

9
opposition between mechanism and vitalism has been overcome." The error
of the vitalists, Kohler had said, was to define "form" and "order" in such
a way that only living matter could possibly possess them. Seen in the
different light cast by Gestalt theory, the need for multiple ontologies
or universes of discourse disappeared here as well. Like other philosophers
and scientists, psychologists had assumed that natural science meant mechan
ism. Faced with the apparently essential difference between higher psychical
phenomena and those described by Newtonian physics, most psychologists
responded either with interactionism or with a theory of "psychical causa
lity"; both responses led to at least a certain ambivalence about the use
of natural scientific methods in the field. In Die physischen Gestalten
Kohler claimed that what was wrong was not natural science, but the con
ception of natural science among psychologists. If they would adopt the
physics of continua rather than that of corpuscles, and the "understanding
nature" as opposed to the "connect the appearances" style of theory con
struction, he promised, then the unity of science and mind could be establish
ed.
The existence of Sinn, or meaning, not only in the appearances but
also in nature meant, finally, that the fundamental distinction between
the natural sciences and the human studies on which both Wundt and Dilthey
had based their thinking lost both its ontological and its methodological
foundation. With the radical reform offered by Gestalt theory, psychology
9 Koffka, Review of Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten (cited in part three,

n. 369), p. 414. See also
- 517 -
could retain the role assigned to it by Wundt as the fundamental discipline
of the human studies, without sacrificing its legitimating links to natural
science and without having to accept an ontological discontinuity between
nature and mind. Psychology could thus become not only the fundamental human
science, but, in a sense, the key to all the sciences. As Koffka expressed
it in 1925:
The opposition between understanding and explanatory psychology

disappears. And it must, because knowing, according to the view
expressed here, is not a process foreign to nature, because value
and meaning [Sinn] are not domains of reason but are rooted in
the great Being of the world itself.*0
In the same year, Hax Wertheimer put it this way:
Imagine the world consisting of a large plateau on which musicians

are seated, playing .... Here there are various possibilities,
which are different in principle. Firstly, the world could be a
senseless plurality. Everyone acts arbitrarily - everyone for
himself .... This would correspond to a radically piecemeal
[stuckenhafte] theory.... A second possibility would be that when
ever one musician played C, another would play F so many seconds
later; I would establish some blind piecemeal relationship linking
the acts of the individual musicians which would again result in
something totally meaningless.... Our third possibility would be
for instance a Beethoven symphony, where from a part of the whole
we could grasp something of the inner structure of the whole it
self. The fundamental laws, then, would not be piecemeal laws but
structural characteristics of the whole.H
This was a world view well suited to defend the legitimacy of experi
mental psychology in its German context. The Gestalt theorists could join
the attack upon "atomistic" or "mechanistic" natural science, which had
become practically universal in Germany by the l920Ts; but they could also
say that true science need be neither atomistic nor mechanistic. Experi-
10 Koffka, "Psychology" (cited in part three, n. 234), p. 600.
11 Wertheimer, "Gestalt Theory" (1925), trans. in Social Research, 11 (1944),

pp. 98-99.
- 518 -
mental work could show that organization is a fundamental characteristic
of both the physical and the mental worlds, and that meaningful activity
is characteristic of both "lower" and "higher" forms of animal life. The
categorical and methodological changes made by Gestalt theory helped to
open up significant research problems, especially in cognitive psychology;

12
many of these still concern psychologists today. All three of the Ge
stalt theorists identified themselves as psychologists. But they were
dedicated to that discipline because they hoped to use its results to answer
fundamental questions of philosophical anthropology.
However, if such hopes were to be realized, and such claims to phi
losophical legitimacy made good, a number of open questions would have
to be answered. Perhaps the most difficult, but also the most important
problem was that of language. Though Kohler included the sense of a sen
tence among his examples of Gestalt qualities, explicit . analyses of language
played no role in the development of Gestalt theory. This was no accident;
for the structure of language was and is the strongest bastion of rationa
lism. In psychologies or epistemologies based upon rationalistic catego
ries, language constitutes meaning. For Gestalt theory, language merely
expresses meaning that is already there in the appearances. This was al
ready clear in Wertheimer's essay on number concepts, in which language was
a source of evidence about the given, not a medium that structures the gi
ven. The work of Roman Jakobsen and the so-called "Prague school" of lin-
12 For review of the current status of these issues, see Julian Hochberg,
"Organization and the Gestalt Tradition," in Edward C. Cartarette &
Horton P. Friedman, eds., Handbook of Perception, vol. 1 (New York, 1974),
pp. 179-210; "Sensation and Perception," in Eliot Hearst, ed., The First
Century of Experimental Psychology (Hillsdale, N.Y., 1979), pp. 89-
146.
- 519 -
guistics has since made it clear that the Gestalt principle, as they adapt
ed it from Ehrenfels, is eminently applicable to structural analyses of lan
guage. But Wertheimer's immanentist epistemology prevented the Gestalt
theorists from taking that route.
Equally open were the questions of history, the person and society.
In his essay on productive thinking, Wertheimer claimed that the process
of "recentering" can play an important role in our comprehension of histo
rical figures or events. Many years later Thomas Kuhn took up this idea
in his metaphor of the "Gestalt switch" as a description of paradigm shifts
in the history of science. However, this aspects of Gestalt theory was
not worked out in any detail in the years of its emergence. One source
of difficulty was again Wertheimer's epistemology, particularly his con
centration upon the structure of the present situation. We have already
noted the problems this brought for Koffka's attempt to construct a theory
of past experience and memory, in Kohler's anthropoid research, and in
Die physischen Gestalten. The exclusion of, or deemphasis upon time and
historical circumstance as active determinants in Gestalt theory aid
not mean that development and evolution ceased to be important; but it
did mean that they took subordinate places in relation to other, dynamic
essentialist categories.
This became especially clear in Kohler's physical teleology, in which
all events in nature tend toward "states independent of time." In Wert
heimer's essay on number concepts there was still a chance of regarding
"centering the category" as an operation occurring in historical and cul
tural circumstances and determined to some extent by''them. All that re
mained of this in Kohler's natural philosophy was the idea that formed events
- 520 -
in the brain are dependent upon their anatomical topography". Yet the
development of a theory of history continued to be one of the central tasks
of philosophy in Germany. This task became all the more urgent in the
1920s, as the crises of military defeat and economic collapse led to ever
more insistant calls for ideas that could make historical sense of Germa
nys fate - calls that were answered by works like Oswald Spenglers The
Decline of the West. At least as problematic was the absence of a re
cognizable theory either of the individual or of society. Neither of these
categories played an explicit role in the early development of Gestalt
theory.
The Gestalt theorists grasped the situation to which they responded
in the first instance as a problem in the "psychology of knowledge" (Er-
kenntnispsychologie). Accordingly, the roots of the new world view they
offered also lay in that field; and the early development of their theory
was largely, though by no means entirely confined to it. Whether they
could encompass the whole from this "part", as they hoped - whether their
new epistemology could also solve the other problems of psychology, or
could support a world view that academic philosophers and other intellect
uals in Weimar Germany would accept - remain open questions.
Essay on Sources
When work on. this dissertation began, the history of non-psychoanalytic
psychology in Europe was virgin territory; in many respects, it still is.
This is especially true of the intellectual, social and institutional contexts
of that history. Thus, in order to obtain a reasonably complete picture of
even this single topic in the history of psychology, the historian must supple
ment his own critical reading of the writings of the Gestalt theorists and
their contemporaries by consulting archival sources and by reinterpreting se
condary accounts originally intended to achieve other purposes. Only a se
lective account of these sources can be presented here. We will begin with
a brief assessment of the sources for the social and intellectual context and
then discuss the sources for the early history of Gestalt theory itself.
General histories of Wilhelminian Germany discuss the development of
science and its academic context only marginally, usually in the section on
the role of technology in German industrialization. The best one-volume sur
vey, Gordon A. Craigs Germany 1866-1945, offers a useful discussion of the
limits to academic freedom; but the rapidly growing literature on the univer
sity and society has yet to be integrated into these general accounts. Fritz
Ringers seminal study, The Decline of the German Mandarins, which is based
upon printed sources, has been succeeded, though not superseded, by monographs
and articles which also consult archival material. Charles McClelland's
State, Society and University in Germany 1700-1914 and Konrad Jarauschs
thorough studies on the universities in Prussia are the best of these. This
*) Except where complete references are given, names and titles mentioned
in this essay refer to items listed in the bibliography, to which the
reader is referred.
- 521 -
- 522 -
work, especially that of Jarausch, is concerned primarily with the distribu
tion of knowledge in German society, and makes corresponding use of quanti
tative techniques. This is also true of Ringer's recent comparative study,
Education and Society in Modern Europe. The results coincide with fruitful
work along similar lines by social historians of science, of which recent stu
dies by Lewis Pyenson and Douglas Skopp on the training and social origins
of chemists and physicists are useful examples.
However, as already pointed out in the introduction, this work does not
always establish a clear relationship between changes in social structure
and the content of the knowledge to be distributed. Fritz Ringer tries to do
this for the humanities and social thought in The Decline of the German Manda
rins; but he does not discuss the natural sciences, though he does devote some
perceptive comments to psychology. Essays by Paul Forman and Russell McCormmach
suggest that Ringer's perspective may apply to these disciplines, too. A forth
coming monograph by R. Steven Turner on the growth of academic research in the
nineteenth century will address these issues more fully. Whether the genera
lizations these scholars present are valid for all universities and all dis
ciplines remains to be seen. Studies of individual universities from a socio-
historical viewpoint are rare. The best thus far for this period is Reinhard
Riese's monograph on the University of Heidelberg, which is based" in part on ex
tensive archival research. Riese's work is particularly illuminating on the
effect of the changing social structure of the university upon the develop
ment and institutionalization of individual disciplines. Peter Lundgreen's
study of "differentiation" in German higher education offers a useful over
view of the establishment of new disciplines at the University of Berlin.
Unfortunately, he does not discuss the important structural issues just raised.
- 523 -
For the content of knowledge, then, and for general cultural and ideo
logical trends, the work of traditional intellectual historians and historians
of science continues to offer valuable assistance. H. Stuart Hughes* Conscious
ness and Society remains an indispensible overview of trends in European
philosophy and social thought in this period. It may be supplemented for the
Austrian scene by Carl Schorske's brilliant Fin-de-Siecle Vienna,by Alan Janik
and Stephen Toulmin's perceptive Wittgensteins Vienna (New York, Simon and
Schuster, 1973), and by Charles Johnsons panoramic but in places superficial
overview, The Austrian Mind. Neither a survey of comparable scope nor analyses
of equal breadth and penetration exists for Wilhelminian Germany, though Peter
Gay's collection of essays, Freud, Jews and Other Germans, offers some useful
contributions. In the first chapter of his Weimar Culture, Walter Laqueur ex
presses the opinion that by the turn of century things were not so bad for in
tellectuals in Germany as the constant crisis talk of the Weimar period later
led historians to think. However, David Luft's recent study of Robert Musil
provides a sensitive treatment of the dilemmas that many intellectuals of
what he calls "The Generation of 1905" did face. Indispensible for the flavor
of the period are memoirs like those of Ludwig Marcuse, Mein zwanzigstes Jahr-
hundert.
For the general history of science and philosophy there is no single
survey that could hope to do for this period what the monumental opus of John
Theodore Merz has done for the early and middle nineteenth century. The near
est thing to such an achievement, at least in depth if not in breadth, is Ernst
Cassirer's The Problem of Knowledge. The last two volumes of J.D. Bernal's
Science in History are obviously relevant here, but the sections on psychology
and the social sciences are not its strongest parts. The student must there
- 524 -
fore pull together what he can from studies of individual disciplines or re
search problems. For the history of Gestalt theory, studies in the history of
physics, biology and neurophysiology are most relevant. For the history of
physics, in addition to the articles by Lawrence Badash and Stanley Goldberg
and the monographs by William Berkson and Stephan Brush, cited in the footnotes,
the work of L. Pearce Williams and Mary Hesse on the history of field theory
has been most useful. On the history of physical chemistry there seems to be
less literature on the same level. Kurt Mendelssohn*s breezy biography of
Walther Nernst is entertaining about the man but not very enlightening about his
work. In the history of biology, the concise survey by Garland Allen is a
most helpful orientation. So is Donald Flemings introduction to his edition
of Jacques Loeb's The Mechanistic Conception of Life. On Driesch's vitalism
the only comprehensive treatment in English is Horst Heinz Freyhofer's 1979
doctoral dissertation, which is little more than a rudimentary chronological
survey of a vast oeuvre. On the natural philosophy of psychovitalists like
Erich Becher there is little secondary literature. For the history of neuro
physiology Robert Youngs Mind, Brain and Adaptation is the best orientation
for the period up to 1870. The period after 1870 still awaits an equally so
phisticated survey, but Judith Swazey's book on Sherrington offers some useful
background.
Few of the many surveys of the history of philosophy manage to integrate
all aspects of this many-faceted period in a satisfying way. John Passmore's
A Hundred Years of Philosophy is more sophisticated than its title suggests;
it is especially notable among Anglo-Saxon surveys for its treatment of Mei-
nong and Husserl. For Neo-Kantianism there is a reasonably clear study by
Thomas Willey entitled Back to Kant. This is concerned primarily with the poli-
- 525 -
tical and social thought of the Neo-Kantians, and less with their view of
psychology. David R. Lipton's recently published dissertation on Ernst
Cassirer is, unfortunately, rather wooden. The most comprehensive German-
language survey of the period remains volume twelve of tJberweg's history,
edited by Traugott Konstantin Osterreich in 1923. Osterreich does something
that later historians of philosophy do not do. He recognizes that psychology
was seen at the time as one of many competing approaches to philosophy, and
not as a separate discipline. Few of the recent monographs on the period take
account of this fact, despite the evident influence of figures such as Lotze,
Fechner, Wundt and Brentano. An important exception, and by far the most use
ful survey for the purposes of this dissertation, is Maurice Mandelbaums
masterful History, Man and Reason.
Among the numerous monographs on individual philosophers, the volumes
by Reinhardt Grossmann on Meinong and Hans Sluga on Frege have been most help
ful. Sluga refuses to treat Frege as an illustrious ancester of analytical
philosophy, and sets him instead in historical context as part of the Neo-Kant-
ian, formalistic reaction against naturalism and materialism. Antos Rancurello's
study of Brentano is competent. From the point of view of general intellect
ual history, rather than the technical history of philosophy, the best treat
ment of Meinong is David Lindenfeld's The Transformation of Positivism. The
literature on Husserl and James is overwhelming, but the standard accounts
by Marvin Farber and Herbert Spiegelberg on Husserl and Ralph Barton Perry on
James remain useful. In his collection of essays, BewuBtsein in Geschichten,
Hermann Liibbe offers some provocative comments about the relationship between
the thought of Husserl and that of Mach.
- 526 -
Several books on Dilthey's thought have appeared recently, of which
the best, and the only one to devote significant attention to the role of psy
chology in his philosophical development, is Rudolph Makkreel1s Dilthey; Phi
losopher of the Human Studies. There has been no satisfactory survey of
Bergsons philosophy for many years, but books by Milic Capek and Anthony Ed
ward Pilkington provide useful insights into aspects of his thought and in
fluence. For the purposes of this thesis, however, the most stimulating treat
ment of the "revision of mind", and of the ambivalent relationship of its
representatives to critical positivism, is Peter Gorsen's study, Zur Phano-
menologie des BewuBtseinsstromes. On the history of positivism itself, the
older study by Richard von Mises and the more recent volume by Leszek Kolakowski
are helpful. The greatest mine of pertinent information, however, is undoubted
ly John Blackmore's thoroughly researched biography of Mach. The books short
comings as philosophy and as history of science may be compensated by reading
the penetrating studies by Robert Cohen and Erwin Hiebert. Unfortunately,
the book is weakest on Mach and the history of psychology - a gap only now be
ing filled by others.
Though internalist, presentistic perspectives continue to dominate in
the history of psychology, much of the recent literature expresses the grow
ing conviction that this history, like that of any discipline, cannot be treat
ed in isolation from the general history of science, or from the general histo
ry of thought and culture. Monographs reflecting this viewpoint are few, as
yet. The most important articles by Kurt Danziger, David Leary, R. Steven
Turner and others are published in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral
Sciences, and in the spate of essay collections brought out to mark the centen
nial of the Leipzig laboratory. Of particular interest are the Wundt centennial
- 527 -
issue of the journal Psychological Research (vol. 42), the collection Wundt
Studies, edited by Wolfgang 6 . Bringmann and Ryan D. Tweney, and the volume
Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology, edited by Robert W.
Rieber. William Woodward and I have brought together additional contribu
tions going beyond Wundt, and also beyond German psychology, in The Problematic
Science; Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought.
The institutionalization of experimental psychology has become a focal
point of this research. Though much of the reorientation in the history of
psychology has occurred on the basis of reading, or rereading the published
sources, institutional history cannot be done adequately without the aid of
archival material. Ideas have no future without a forum, and in German academic
science this generally meant a professorial chair and the directorship of the
accompanying institute or seminar. True, archival studies cannot always tell
us why certain people receive particular chairs much is worked out behind the
scenes. However, sometimes there are documented moments of truth, as we have
seen in the case of Wolfgang Kohlers appointment to Carl Stumpfs chair in
Berlin. In any case, documents do tell us how appointments were or were not
made, and above all what university faculties and ministerial officials expect
ed of the appointees.
Work in this area of the history of psychology is only beginning. Wolf
gang Bringmann and Norma Bringmann have published a thoroughly researched ac
count of the establishment of Wundts laboratory, based on both Leipzig univer
sity and Saxon state archives. I have tried to do the same in part one of
this thesis for Stumpf's institute in Berlin. Another useful study is that
by Hans-Georg Burger on experimental psychology in GieBen, based on material in
the university archives there. Unfortunately, Burger apparently made no
- 528 -
attempt to obtain the ministerial side of the story, which - given the rela
tion of German universities to the state - is often the more important one.
Aside from these accounts, there are only scattered hits of information in
publications on other topics for the period before 1920. Data on institute
budgets can sometimes be obtained from printed sources, especially university
Festschriften; but archival work can be valuable here as well, to reveal patterns
of ministerial support, or its absence. Ulfried Geuter's dissertation on the
professionalization of psychology in the Nazi period, just completed, includes
a thorough summary of available documentation for that period in university and
state archives. These sources should be pursued for the pre-Nazi years as
well. However, both Geuter and I have encountered one important difficulty,
the apparent nonexistence of private papers for psychologists who died after
1930 and did not emigrate. The hereabouts of the papers of Carl Stumpf and
G.E. Muller, for example, is unknown; and psychologists are not listed in the
standard guides to documents in German archives. This, and the destruction
wrought in many German archives by the Second World War, could pose obstacles
to further research.
We now turn to the history of Gestalt psychology. Here archival ma
terial is abundant and largely accessible, though widely scattered. I have
attempted to summarize the available materials, their location, the restrictions
on their use and their value for historians in an article entitled "Eragments
of the Whole: Documents of the History of Gestalt Psychology in the United
States, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic
(in Josef Brozek and Ludwig Pongratz, eds., Historiography of Modern Psychology,
Toronto, Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 187-200). References are also included in a com
pilation by Michael M. Sokal and Patrice Rafail, A Guide to Manuscript Collections
- 529 -
in the History of Psychology and Related Areas (Millwood, New York, Kraus In
ternational , 1982).
For the period covered in this dissertation, however, there are im
portant gaps in the documents. The papers of the Gestalt theorists, for
example, contain few items dating before 1920. Some information can be re
constructed from other documents, such as the letters from Kurt Koffka to
Fritz Mauthner in the Mauthner collection in the Leo Baeck Institute Library.
Letters from Mauthner to Koffka have not yet been discovered. Invaluable in
this regard are the exchanges between Wolfgang Kohler and Wilhelm Waldeyer
in the archives of the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, and between Koh
ler and Robert Yerkes in the Yerkes papers. In both cases both sides of
the correspondence have been preserved. Taken together, these exchanges yield
important insights into both the development of Kohler's thought in these
years and the institutional context in which it occurred. Also invaluable is
Koffkas lecture, "Beginnings of Gestalt Theory", given in 1931 to the New
York Branch of the American Psychological Association. The manuscript is among
the Koffka papers at the Archives of the History of American Psychology. How
ever, this account must be treated in the same critical fashion as any memoir,
as shaped by the circumstances in which it was written. In this case, we may
suspect that the nature of his audience led Koffka to stress the more strictly
psychological over the philosophical aspects of the story. Interviews are a
valuable source for later periods in the history of Gestalt theory. For this
period, however, interviewees could only provide occasional bits of useful, but
second-hand information. Of the twenty-one interviews conducted thus
far, I have listed in the bibliography only the three for which this was the
case.
- 530 -
The situation with regard to published sources is much less spotty. Dif
ficulties exist here only for scholars who do not read German. Many of the
later (post-1920) writings of the Gestalt theorists were either originally
published in English or have since been translated. This is less true of their
earlier work. Tor Kohler, for example, only the important 1913 essay "On Un
noticed Sensations and Errors of Judgment" and the monograph on primate intel
ligence exist in full translation. Die physischen Gestalten is admittedly ex
tremely difficult reading, even in German, and would thus be a problem for the
most dedicated translator. But even the lengthy summary and abridgment in
Willis D. Ellis Sourcebook of Gestalt Psychology cannot be regarded as a
substitute. For Wertheimer, only the paper on apparent movement has been trans
lated, in an abridged version which omits a number of important passages. The
papers on number concepts in primitive peoples and on productive thinking have
been briefly summarized and abridged in the Ellis collection.
The excellent volume edited by Mary Henle, The Selected Papers of Wolf
gang Kohler, effectively exhibits Kohlers wide range as a thinker. The col
lection contains several translations, most of them by Henle and all quite
reliable. Michael Wertheimer has included translations of a number of articles
and previously unpublished fragments from Wertheimer's papers in his revised
edition of Productive Thinking. These two books also include nearly complete
bibliographies for the two men. The bibliography for Kohler, compiled by Edwin
B. Newman, is in Selected Papers, pp. 437-49; that for Wertheimer in Productive
Thinking, revised edition, pp. 294-96.
Kurt Koffka has not yet been so well served as his two colleagues, part
ly because he began publishing in English quite early, and partly because his
monumental Principles of Gestalt Psychology has been considered more than suf
- 531 -
ficient indication of his mature views. Nonetheless, some of Koffka*s im
portant early work, especially the polemic against Benussi, remains untrans
lated. A bibliography of Koffka* s writings to 1930 is in Carl Murchison, ed.,
The Psychological Register (Worcester, Mass., Clark University Press, 1930).
Molly Harrower-Erikson added a list of later publications to her obituary
article. The bibliography in the Murchison volume omits a number of signifi
cant review essays.
Biographies of all three of the Gestalt theorists have been in progress
for some time, but have yet to appear. In the meantime, biographical informa
tion can be gathered from obituary articles and short pieces in biographical
dictionaries and in encyclopedias of philosophiy and the social sciences. Some
of these are listed and briefly assessed in part three, notes 1, 18 and 36.
Aside from this material, the early writings of the Gestalt theorists them
selves, and indirect documentation of their student and teaching careers from
university publications, we have only occasional autobiographical references
in the Gestaltists later writings. It goes without saying that these must be
used with caution.
The secondary literature on Gestalt psychology is immense. Even a se
lective bibliography could easily fill a volume by itself. No such volume
exists, but there are useful lists in both older and more recent sources. The
longest of the older lists is that appended to Friedrich Sander's review essay,
"Experimentelle Ergebnisse der Gestaltpsychologie," on pp. 69-87. This con
tains over 500 items, including references to older research on the Gestalt
problem and the work of other "schools" of Gestalt psychology. Also useful are
the bibliographies in Ruprecht Matthaej,Das Gestaltproblem, pp. 83-100, and
in Koffka's Principles, pp. 687-701. The lengthy bibliography in the fourth
- 532 -
edition of Wolfgang Metzger's Psychologie (1968), pp. 338-68, also contains more
recent items. Among other recent bibliographies the best starting points are
the entries for Koffka, Kohler and Wertheimer in Robert I. Watson, Sr., ed.,
Eminent Contributors to Psychology, vol. 2 (New York, Springer, 1976). These
are extensive, but they exhibit the limitations of Mographically organized re
ference works. In addition to articles that explicitly mention one or another
of the Gestalt theorists in the title, Watson includes numerous other general
articles on Gestalt theory under each of the three names, using inclusion and
distribution principles known only to himself. Also helpful is the listing un
der "Gestalt Psychology" in Wayne Viney, Michael Wertheimer, and Marilyn Wert
heimer, eds., History of Psychology; A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit,
Gale Research, 1S79, pp. 182-97). However, this includes only references in
English. A common limitation of all of these bibliographies is their nearly
exclusive restriction to publications in psychological journals and books.
Readers interested in the roots of Gestalt theory in and its impact upon other
disciplines and the wider culture are left largely to their own devices.
The numerous books and essays entirely or primarily about Gestalt theo
ry are often subject to the limitations of "practitioner's history" already
described in the introduction. Most, if not all, of the earlier discussions,
eventhose which call themselves "historical", are more properly treated as part
of the history of Gestalt theory than as historical accounts of it. Read cri
tically, however, they provide valuable information. Thorough historical treat
ments of specific research problems are an essay by Ludwig Kardos on the con
stancies, Adhemar Gelb's handbook article on color constancy, and Kurt Koffka's
handbook articles on motion perception and vision. All contain extensive biblio
graphies, and all are trying to make a case, usually for the contributions of
Gestalt theory.
- 533 -
Of older treatments of Gestalt theory in English, the most informative
and least tendentious are Harry Helson*s dissertation of 1925, which was
published as a series of articles entitled "The Psychology of Gestalt", and
the chapter on Gestalt theory in Edna Heidbredder's survey, Seven Psychologies.
George Hartman*s widely cited introduction, Gestalt Psychology, has the advantage
of including discussion of the Graz and Leipzig schools as well a s the Berlin
school. However, its sometimes breezy style betrays its origins as a popular
text, and the account contains a number of errors. There has been no full-
length account of Gestalt theory in English, historical or not, since Hart
man's book and Koffka*s Principles, both of which appeared in 1935. Reliable
systematic accounts of article length by American students of the Gestalt theo
rists are those by Mary Henle and Solomon Asch. Asch's Social Psychology and
Rudolph Amheim's many books, especially Art and Visual Perception, Visual Think
ing and Entropy and Art, are stimulating attempts to apply the characteristic
approach of Gestalt theory to specific problem areas.
Of the numerous book-length accounts in German, only that by Ruprecht
Matthaei can be considered fully objective, perhaps because it takes no parti
cular position. Par and away the most penetrating treatment is that by Martin
Scheerer, Die Lehre von der Gestalt. Scheerer, a student of William Stern,
sought to vindicate his teacher's personalistic approach. But his studies with
Stern and Ernst Cassirer equipped him well to appreciate the philosophical
content and significance of Gestalt theory. Also perceptive, but more sharply
critical, is the account by Bruno Petermann, a student of Gotz Martius who sought
to defend the priority and superiority of his teacher's "analytical" psychology.
Unfortunately, the English translation is quite bad. The study by Egon Bruns-
wik, "Prinzipienfragen der Gestalttheorie," is an early attempt by an important
- 534 -
theorist of perception to come to an independent position by working through
that of the Berlin school. Its early sections contain useful historical back
ground; some of this is drawn in turn from an essay by Ferdinand Weinhandel,
which was intended to illustrate both the age of the Gestalt concept and its
close connection with German idealist and romantic philosophy. Erich Jaensch
and Lazslo Grunhut's book tiber Gestalttheorie is a polemic against Kohler's
alleged "materialism".
In books written during and after the war, the German proponents and
sympathizers of Gestalt theory got some of their own back. David Katz's Ge
stalt Psychology is a generally reliable, sympathetic but not uncritical ac
count. Some of Katz's alleged "errors" have been "corrected" by Wolfgang Metz
ger in the fourth German edition. Such "corrections" were not made in the
English translation, which is adequate. Despite its title, Metzger's own text
is less a historical presentation than a comprehensive account of his version
of Gestalt theory; it is all the more interesting and important for that
reason. Perhaps the most sophisticated systematic overview, however, is Theo
Herrmann's monograph, "Ganzheitspsychologie und Gestalttheorie". Originally
published as Herrmann's dissertation in 1957, the essay has been reprinted
with minor changes and a bibliographical supplement in the encyclopedia Die
Psychologie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Consistent with Hermann's adherence in 1957
to a logical positivist philosophy of science is his tendency to overstress
the Berlin school's intellectual "dependence" upon Mach. However, this is
also characteristic of the distinctly non-positivist account of Kohler's iso
morphism recently published by Peter Keiler, the intent of which is to develop
Gestalt therory in the direction of Soviet cognitive psychology. Neither treat
ment can be called genuinely historical, despite Keiler's use of that term in
his title.
- 535 -
Other book-length accounts are mainly the work of philosophers, who have
systematic intentions of their own. Ismail Amin offers an adequate, though
elementary and schematic treatment of Gestalt theory and associationism. Ash
Gobar's dissertation on Gestalt theory and "genetic psychology" is a thorough,
competent comparison of the Berlin school with Piagetian theory. D.W. Hamlyn's
allegedly historical books are actually critiques of older theories of percep
tion from the standpoint of British analytical philosophy. Charles Wallraff's
Philosophical Theory and Psychological Fact includes a critical synopsis of the
findings and viewpoint of Gestalt theory in his attempt to establish an existent
ialist epistemology close to that of Jaspers. Head and shoulders above all
these treatments stands Aron Gurwitsch's The Field of Consciousness. Gurtwitsch
was closely associated with the Gestalt theorists in Germany, and with their
students in America. His careful discussions of the positions of James, Husserl
and the Graz school as well as that of Gestalt theory make the book valuable
for an understanding of that theory's conceptual context. At the same time,
the book is an attempt to develop Gestalt theory and Husserlian phenomenology
into a coherent, original philosophical position. It is thus an important do
cument of the influence of Gestalt theory as',well. But that is another story.
B ibliography
Introductory note and list of abbreviations
This is neither a bibliography of Gestalt psychology nor of its history,
but a listing of the sources that have been found useful in preparing this the
sis, whether they have been cited in the footnotes or not. This means that
many items relating to the history of Gestalt psychology after 1920 have not
been included. The editions and translations listed are those actually employ
ed in the research. When both the original and the translation have been used,
both are listed. When the edition or printing used is not the first, the data
of original publication is given in parentheses immediately after the title.
The bibliography is divided into three sections, for unpublished pri
mary sources, published primary sources and secondary sources, respectively.
In the section for published primary sources, works by Kohler, Koffka and
Wertheimer are listed first, followed by works of other authors in alphabetic
al order. In general, published primary sources are items published before
1930. However, some exceptions have been made, the reasons for which should
be clear in each case. Autobiographies and memoirs, for example, have been
listed with the primary sources. On the other hand, secondary accounts, or
works used as such in this thesis, have been listed under that rubric even when
they were written by authors also listed under primary sources. Ernst
Cassirer*s book, The Problem of Knowledge, is an example. Works about Gestalt
psychology other than those by Kohler, Koffka and Wertheimer have been listed
under secondary sources, regardless of publication date.
- 536 -
- 537 -
Abbreviations of proper names and short titles used in the biblio
graphy are as follows:
Abhandl. (Sitzungsber.) der konigl. Abhandlungen (Sitzungsberichte) der

Preuss. (bayr.) Akad. der Wiss. kSniglich Preussischen (bayrischen)
Akademie der Wissenschaften
Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci. Journal of the History of the

Behavioral Sciences
Selected Papers The Selected Papers of Wolfgang

Kohler, ed. Mary Henle, New York,
Liveright, 1971
Source Book A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology,

ed. Willis D. Ellis, London,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1938
- 538 -
I. Unpublished Primary Sources
A. Archival Material
American Philosophical Society Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Wolfgang Kohler papers
Archives of the History of American Psychology, The University of Akron,

Akron, Ohio
Kurt Koffka papers

Wertheimer memoir (oral history, various interviewees)
Leo Baeck Institute Library, New York, New York
Max Wertheimer folder

Fritz Mauthner collection
Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Papers of Edwin G. Boring
Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York,
New York
Max Wertheimer papers
Max Wertheimer papers, private collection in possession of Prof. Michael

Wertheimer, Boulder, Colorado
Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Handschriftenabteilung
Lecture notes for Carl Stumpf, "Psychologie", Wintersemester 1910-1911,

by Dr. Birven, Handschrift Nr. 150_
Correspondence of Carl Stumpf, Sammlung Darmstaedter
Universitatsarchiv der Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen
Universitatskuratorium. XVI.17 A.a. ordentliche Professoren. 15a.

Dr. (Georg Elias) Miiller; 281. Dr. (Wolfgang) Kohler
- 539 -
Universitatsarchiv der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Berlin, DDR
Chronik der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Uaiversitat zn Berlin, 1894 ff.
Philosophische Fakultat. Dekanat. Nr. 152, Ordentlicher Professor

Dr. Wertheimer; Nr. 1469-1474, Professoren (Kohlerr.Wertheimer, Lewin)
Yale University Medical Library Archives, New Haven, Connecticut
Robert M. Yerkes papers
Zentrales Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Berlin, DDR
Albert-Samson-Stiftung: Kuratorialakten 1918-1029, II: XIIIZ, Bnd. 6
Albert-Samson-Stiftung: Die Anthropoidenstation auf Teneriffa,

II: XIII2, Bnd. 13
Handakte Wilhelm von Waldeyer (von Waldeyer-Hartz)
Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Dienststelle Merseburg, DDR
Ministerium fur geistliche, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangelegenheiten

(Kultusministerium), later Ministerium fur Wissenschaft Kunst und Volks-
bildung
Die Anstellung und Besoldung der ordentlichen und ausserordentli-

chen Professoren an der Philosophischen Fakultat der Universitat
Berlin (Marz 1892-Januar 1894), Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 61,
vol. 6
Das Seminar fur experimentelle Psychologie bei der Universitat

Berlin, later Psychologisches Institut der hiesigen Universitat
(1894-1934), Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 2 Tit. X Nr. 150, vols. 1-3
Correspondence of Friedrich Althoff, Rep. 92 Althoff B Nr. 182, vol. 4
B. Interviews
Gunter Anders Berlin-Vienna 5 October 1980

(Telephone interview)
Edwin B. Newman Cambridge, Massachusetts 2 October 1976
Edwin Rausch Oberursel & Frankfurt a.M. 22 September 1978
- 540 -
II. Published Primary Sources
A. Works by Wolfgang Kohler, Kart Koffka and Max Wertheimer
1. Wolfgang Kohler
"Akustische Untersuchuagea I, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 54 (1909), pp. 241-89.
"Akustische Untersuchungen II," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 58 (1910), pp. 59-

140.
"tiber akustische .Prinzipalqualitaten," ia Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht

uber den 4. Koagress fur experimeatelle Psychologie ... 1910, Leipzig,
Barth, 1911, pp. 229-33.
"Akustische Untersuchungea", in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den

5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie... 1912, Leipzig, Barth, 1912,
pp. 151-56.
"Zur Funktionspriifung bei Aphasischen,Munchener medizinische Wochenschrift,

60 (1913), p. 2651.
"Akustische Untersuchungea III & IV: Vorlaufige Mitteilung," Zeitschrift fur

Psychologie, 64 (1913), pp. 92-105.
Review of Georg Anschutz, 'Tendenzen im psychologischen Empirismus der Gegen

wart, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 64 (1913), p. 441.
"Zu den Bemerkungen von G. Anschutz," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 66 (1913),

pp. 319-20; "SchluBbemerkung," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 67 (1913),
p. 506.
'tiber unbemerkte Empfindungen und Urteilstauschungen, 11 Zeitschrift fur Psy

chologie, 6 6 (1913), pp. 51-80; "On Unnoticed Sensations and Errors of
Judgment," trans. Helmut E. Adler, in Selected Papers, pp. 13-39.
"Akustische Untersuchungen III," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 72 (1915), pp. 1-

192.
"Optische Untersuchungen am Schimpansen und am Haushuhn," Abhandl. der konigl.

Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., physik.-math. KL., 1915, no. 3.
"Die Farbe der Sehdinge beim Schimpansen und beim Haushuhn,?* Zeitschrift fur
Psychologie, 77 (1917), pp. 248-55.
"Intelligenzprufungen an Anthropoiden. I." Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss. Akad.

der Wiss., physikl.-math. KL., 1917, No. 1; 3rd ed., Berlin, Springer,
1973; The Mentality of Apes, trans of 2nd ed. by Ella Winter (1925),
paperback ed., New York, Vintage Books, 1959.
- 541 -
"Nachweis einfacher Strukturfunktionen beim Schimpansen und beim Haushuhn,"

Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., phys.-math. KL., 1918,
No. 2.
Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationeren Zustand: Eine Naturphi-

losophische Untersuchung, Braunschweig, Vieweg, 1920; 2nd ed., Erlangen,
Verlag der Fhilosophischen Akademie, 1924; abr. trans. in Ellis, Source
Book, pp. 17-54.
"Zur Psychologie des Schimpansen," Psychologische Forschung, 1 (1922), pp. 2-46;

repr. in Intelligenzprufungen an Menschenaffen, 3rd ed., pp. 195-223;
"Some Contributions to the Psychology of Chimpanzees," trans. Ella Win
ter, in The Mentality of Apes, pp. 241-93.
"Die Methoden der psychologischen Forschung an Affen," in Emil Aberhalden, ed.,

Handbuch der biologischen Arbeitsmethoden, Abt. 6 , Teil D, Berlin, Urban
& Schwarzenberg, 1921, pp. 69-120; "Methods of Psychological Research
with Apes," trans. Mary Henle, in Selected Papers, pp. 197-223.
"Zur Theorie des Sukzessiwergleichs und der Zeitfehler,Psychologische For

schung, 4 (1923), pp. 115-75.
"Gestaltprobleme und Anfange einer Gestalttheorie," Jahresbericht uber die

gesamte Physiologie und experimentelle Pharmakologie, vol. 3, Bericht
uber das Jahr 1922 (publ. 1924), pp. 512-39.
Gestalt Psychology, New York, Liveright, 1929; rev. ed. (1947), paperback
repr., New York, Mentor Books, n.d.
The Place of Value in a World of Facts (1938), paperback reissue, New York,
Liveright, 1976.
Dynamics in Psychology (1940), paperback reissue, New York, Liveright, 1973.
"Figural After-Effects in the Third Dimension of Visual Space," (with D.A.

Emery), American Journal of Psychology, 60 (1947), pp. 159-201.
"The Cortical Correlates of Pattern Vision" (with Richard Held), Science,

110 (1949), pp. 414-19.
"Psychology and Evolution," ActaPsychologica, 7 (1950), pp. 288-97.
"Unresolved Problems in the Field of Figural After-Effects" (1965), in Select

ed Papers, pp. 274-302.
"Gestalt Psychology," Psychologische Forschimfr, 31 (1967), pp. xviii-xxx;

repr. in Selected Papers, pp. 108-22.
The Task of Gestalt Psychology, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969.
- 542 -
2. Kurt Koffka
"Experimentaluntersuchungen zur Lehre vom Rhythnms" (portions), Phil. Diss.

Berlin, 1908; complete in Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 52 (1909), pp. 1-109.
"fiber latente Einstellung", in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 4.

Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1910, Leipzig, Barth, 1911,
pp. 239-41.
Zur Analyse der Vorstellungen und ihrer Gesetze: Eine experimentelle Untersu
chung, Leipzig, Quelle & Meyer, 1912.
Review of Oswald Kulpe, "Psychologie und Medizin", Deutsche Literaturzeitung,

33 (1912), pp. 2271-75.
Review of Alfred Kastil, "Johannes Fr. Fries' Lehre von der unmittelbaren Er-
kenntnis," Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 34 (1913), pp. 276-85.
Review of Erich Jaensch, "fiber die Wahmehmung des Raumes," Deutsche Literatur
zeitung, 34 (1913), pp. 1112-17.
Review of David Katz, "Die Erscheinungsweise der Farben," Deutsche Literatur

zeitung, 34 (1913), pp. 3091-99.
"Psychologie der Wahmehmung," Die Geisteswissenschaften, 1 (1914), pp. 711-16,

796-800.
"Zur Grundlegung der Wahrnehmungspsychologie: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit

V. Benussi," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 73 (1915), pp. 11-90; repr. in
Kurt Koffka, ed., Beitrage zur Psychologie der Gestalt, Leipzig, Barth,
1919, pp. 203-82; abr. trans. in Ellis, Sourcebook, pp. 371-78.
"Probleme der experimentellen Psychologie, I. Die Unterschiedsschwelle," Die

Naturwissenschaften, 5 (1917), pp. 1-5, 23-28; "II. fiber den Einfluss der
Erfahrung auf die Wahmehmung," Die Naturwissenschaften, 7 (1919), pp. 597-
605.
Review of Paul Linke, "Grundfragen der Wahmehmungslehre.,,, Zeitschrift fur any -

wandte .Psychologie, 16 (1920), pp. 102-17.
"Perception: An Introduction to the Gestalt-Theorie" (1922), repr. in Thome

Shipley, Classics in Psychology, New York, Philosophical Library, 1961,
pp. 1128-96.
"Zur Theorie der Erlebnis-Wahmehmung," Annalen der Philosophie, 3 (1923),

pp. 375-98.
"Psychologie", in Max Dessoir, ed., Lehrbuch der Philosophie, Berlin, Springer,

1925, vol. 2, pp. 497-603.
- 543 -
"Die Krisis in der Psychologie: Bemerkungen zu dem Buch gleichen Namens von
Hans Driescn, Die Naturwissenschaften, 25 (1926), pp. 581-86.
"Die Wahmehmung von Bewegung" & "Psychologie der optischen Wahmehmung," in

Albrecht Bethe, ed., Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiolo-
gie, vol. 12:2, Berlin, Springer, 1931, pp. 1166-1214, 1215-71.
"The Ontological Status of Value," in Horace M. Kallen & Sidney Hook, eds.,
American Philosophy Today and Tomorrow (1935), repr. Preeport, N.Y.,
Books for Literaries, 1968, pp. 274-309.
Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935), paperback ed., New York, Harcourt,

Brace, 1963.
3. Max Wertheimer
"Psychologische Tatbestandsdiagnostik" (with Julius Klein), Archiv fur Krimi-

nalanthropologie und Kriminalistik, 15 (1904), pp. 72-113.
"Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur Tatbestandsdiagnostik," Archiv fur die

gesamte Psychologie, 6 (1905), pp. 59-131; also published separately,
Leipzig, Engelmann, 1904.
"tiber die Assoziationsmethoden," Archiv fur Kriminalanthropologie und Krimina

listik, 22 (1906), pp. 293-319.
"Zur Tatbestandsdiagnostik: eine Feststellung," Archiv fur die gesamte Psy

chologie, 7 (1906), pp. 139-40.
"Musik der Wedda," Sammelbande der intemationalen Musikgesellschaft, 11 (1910),

pp. 30009.
"Uber das Dehken der Naturvolker. I. Zahlen und Zahlgebilde," Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 60 (1912), pp. 321-78; repr. in Drei Abhandlungen zur Ge
stalttheorie, Erlangen, Verlag der Philosophischen Akademie, 1925,
pp. 105-63.
"Experimentelle Stud'en uber das Sehen von Bewegung," Zeitschrift fur Psycho
logie, 61 (1912), pp. 161-265; repr. in Drei Abhandlungen, pp. 1-105; abr..
trans.;.in Thome Shipley, ed., in Classics in Psychology, New York,
Philosophical Library, 1961, pp. 1032-89.
"tiber experimentell-psychologische Analyse einiger himpathologischer Erschei-

nungen," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur
Experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912, Leipzig, Barth, 1913, p. 188.
- 544 -
"tiber himpathologische Erscheintingen und ihre psychologische Analyse" (pro

tocol of a lecture to the Srztlicher Verein Frankfurt a.M.), Munchener
medizinische Wochenschrift, 5 November 1913.
"Vom Geistesleben des Prager Judentums," in Das judische Prag: Eine Sammel
schrift, Prague, Verlag "Selbstwehr", 1918; reissue Kronberg/Taunus, Ju-
discher Verlag in Athenaeum Verlag, 1978, p. 16.
'Tiber Schlussprozesse im produktiven Dehken" (1920), repr. in Drei Abhandlungen,

.. pp. 164-84; abr. trans. in Ellis, Sourcebook, pp. 274-82.
"tiber die Wahrnehmung der Schallrichtung" (with Erich von Hombostel), Sitzimgs-
ber. der Berliner Akad. der Wiss., 20 (1920), pp. 388-96.
"Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. I. Prinzipielle Bemerkungen, Psycho

logische Forschung, 1 (1922), pp. 47-58; abr. trans. in Ellis, Sourcebook,
pp. 12-16.
"Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. II," Psychologische Forschung, 4

(1923), pp. 301-50; abr. trans. in Ellis, Sourcebook, pp. 71-88; abr. trans.
in D.C. Beardslee & M. Wertheimer, eds., Readings in Perception, New York,
Van Nostrand, 1958, pp. 115-35.
tiber Gestalttheorie, Erlangen, Verlag der Philosophischen Akademie, 1925;

"Gestalt Theory," trans. with a forward by Kurt Riezler, Social Research,
11 (1944), pp. 78-99.
"Gestaltpsychologische Forschung," in Emil Saupe, ed., Einfiihrung in die neuere

Psychologie, 2nd & 3rd ed., Osterwieck im Harz, Zwickfeldt, 1928, pp. 43-
54.
Productive Thinking (1945), enl. ed., New York, Harper, 1959.
B. Published Primary Sources; Works by Other Authors
Ach, Narziss, Uber die Willenstatigkeit und das Denken, Gottingen, Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1905; abr. trans. in David Rapaport, comp., Organi
zation and Pathology of Thought; Selected Sources, New York, Columbia
University Press, 1951, pp. 15-38.
Ackerknecht, Erwin, "tiber Umfang und Wert des Begriffes 'Gestaltqualitat',"

Aliotta, Antonio, The Idealitistic Reaction Against Science (1912), trans.

Agnes McGaskill, London, Macmillan, 1914.
- 545 -
Ameseder, Rudolf, "Beitrage zur Grundlegung der Gegeustandstheorie," in

Alexius Meinong, ed., Untersuchungen zur Gegenstaadstheorie und Psycho
logie, Leipzig, Barth, 1904, pp. 51-120.
Angell, James Rowland, 'The Province of Functional Psychology," Psychological

Review, 14 (1907), pp. 61-91.
Anschutz, Georg, Uber Gestaltqualitaten, Erlangen, Junge, 1909.
, "Tendenzen im psychologischen Empirismus der Gegenwart. Eine

_
Erwiderung auf 0. Rulpes Ausfuhrungen 'Psychologie und Medizin* und 'Uber

die Bedeutung der modernen Denkpsychologie*", Archiv fur die gesamte Psy
chologie, 25 (1912), pp. 189-207.
______________, "Bemerkungen zur meiner Kritik von 0. Kiilpes Ausfuhrungen..

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 6 6 (1913), pp. 155-60; "Zusatz zu meinen
Bemerkungen," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 67 (1913), p. 506.
Aster, Ernst von, "Beitrage zur Psychologie der Raumwahraehmung," Zeitschrift

fur Psycholgoie, 43 (1906), pp. 161-203.
_______________, "Die psychologische Beobachtung und experimentelle Untersu

chungen von Denkvorgange," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 49 (1908), pp. 56-
107.
Avenarius, Richard, Philosophie als Denken der Welt gemaB dem Princip des
kleinsten Kraftmasses, Leipzig, Fues (Reisland), 1876.
________________ , Kritik der reinen Erfahrung. 2 vols. (1888-1889), 2nd rev.

ed., Leipzig, Reisland, 1907-1908.
________________ , Der menschliche Weltbegriff, Leipzig, Reisland, 1891.
________________ , "Bemerkungen zum Begriff des Gegenstandes der Psychologie,"

Vierteljahresschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 18 (1894), pp. 137-
61, 400-20; 19 (1895), pp. 1-18, 129-45.
Bain, Alexander, The Senses and the Intellect (1855), 3rd ed., London, Long
mans, Green, 1868.
Bavink, Bernhard, Allgemeine Ergebnisse und Probleme der Naturwissenschaften

Eine Einfuhrung in die moderne Naturphilosophie, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1914.
Bergson, Henri, Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience (1889),

96th ed., Paris, Presses Universitaires de Paris, 1961.
, Matiere et Memoire. Essai sur le relation du corps a I1esprit

(1896), 5th ed., Paris, Alcan, 1908.
- 546 -
Bergson, Henri, "Introduction to Metaphysics" (19o3), in The Creative Mind,

trans. Mabelle L. Andison, New York, Philosophical Library, 1946; repr.
New York, Greenwood Press, 1968, pp. 187-237.
_____________, Creative Evolution (1907), trans. Arthur Mitchell (1911), repr.

New York, Random House, 1944.
Berkeley, George, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), in The

Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyae, ed. A.A. Luce & I.E. Jessup,
vol. 1, London, Nelson, 1948.
______________ , A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,

ed. Colin M. Turbayne, Indianapolis, The Liberal Arts Press, 1972.
Bingham, Harold C., "A Definition of Form," Journal of Animal Behavior, 4

(1914), pp. 136-41.
Binswanger, Ludwig, Einfuhrung in die Problems der allgemeinen Psychologie,

Berlin, Springer, 1922.
Bloch, Ernst, Erbschaft dieser Zeit (1935), reissue Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.
1962.
Blumenfeld, Walter, "Untersuchungen uber die scheinbare Grosse im Sehraume,"

Boas, Franz, The Mind of Primitive Man, New York, Macmillan, 1911.
Boltzmann, Ludwig, Populare Schriften, Leipzig, Barth, 1905.
The Born-Einstein Letters: Correspondence between Albert Einstein and Max

and Hedwig B o m from 1916 to 1955, with Commentaries by Max Bom, trans.
Irene Bora, New York, Walker & Co., 1971.
Becher, Erich, "Kritik der Widerlegung des Parallelismus auf Grund einer
'naturwissenschaftlicnen Analyse der Handlung durch Hans Driesch," Zeit
____________ , "Das Gesetz von der Erhaltung der Energie und die Annahme einer
Wechselbeziehung zwischen Leib und Seele, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie,
46 (1908), pp. 81-122.
____________ , Gehirn und Seele, Heidelberg, Winter, 1911.
____________, "Wolfgang Kohlers physikalische Theorie derphysiologischen

Vorgange, die der Gestaltwahmehmungen zugrunde liegen," Zeitschrift fur
Psychologie, 87 (1921), pp. 1-44.
____________ , Geisteswissenschaften und Naturwissenschaften. Untersuchungen

zur Theorie und Einteilung der Realwissenschaften, Munich & Leipzig,
Duncker & Humblot, 1921.
- 547 -
Benussi, Vittorio, "Zur Psychologie des Gestalterfassens," in Alexius Meinong,

ed., Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, Leipzig,
Barth, 1904, pp. 303-448.
________________, "Experimentelles uber Vorstelluagsinadaquatheit," Zeit

schrift fur Psychologie, 42 (1906), pp. 22-55; 45 (1907), pp. 188-230.
________________, "Uber die Motive der Scheinkorperlichkeit bei umkehrbaren

Zeichnungen," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 20 (1911), pp. 363-96.
________________, "Stroboskopische Scheinbewegungen und geometrisch-optische

Gestalttauschungen,11 Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 24 (1912), pp. .
31-62.
________________, Psychologie der Zeitauffassung, Heidelberg, Winter, 1913.
________________, "Kinematohaptische Scheinbewegungen und Auffassungsforrnung,"

in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle
Psychologie ... 1914, Leipzig, Barth, 1914, pp. 30-35, 148-51.
________________, "Versuche zur Bestimmung der Gestaltzeit," in Friedrich

Schumann ed., Bericht uber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie
... 1914, Leipzig, Barth, 1914, pp. 70-72.
, "Die Gestaltwahrnehmungen," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie,

69 (1914), pp. 256-92.
________________, "Gesetze der inadaquaten Gestaltauffassung," Archiv fur die

gesamte Psychologie, 32 (1914), pp. 396-419.
________________, review of Koffka & Kenkel, "Beitrage zur Psychologie der Ge

stalt- und Bewegungserlebnisse," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie,
32 (1914), Literaturbericht, pp. 50-57.
________________, "Versuche zur Analyse taktil erweckter Scheinbewegungen,"'

Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 36 (1917), pp. 59-135.
Bourdon, B., La perception visuelle de lespace, Paris, Schleicher, 1902.
Brentano, Franz, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (1874), ed. Oskar Kraus
(1924/1925), 2 vols, Hamburg, Meiner, 1959.
______________ , Untersuchungen zur Sinnesnsychologie, Leipzig, Duncker &

Humblot, 1907.
Briefwechsel zwischen Wilhelm Dilthey und dem Grafen Paul Yorck von Warten-
burg 1877-1897, ed. Sigrid von der Schulenburg, Halle a.S., Niemeyer,
1923.
Brunswig, Alfred, Das Vergleichen und die Relationserkermi-ni g, Leipzig & Berlin,
Teubner, 1910.
- 548 -
Buhler, Karl, "Tatsachea und Probleme zu einer Psychologie der Denkvorgange

I: tiber Gedanken," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 9 (1907), no. 297-
365.
__________ , "Tatsachea und Probleme zu eiaer Psychologie der Denkvorgange

II: tiber Gedankenzusammenhange," Archiv fur die ge^mte Psychologie,
(1908), pp. 1-23; abr. trans., "On Thought Connections," in David Rapaport,
comp., Organization and Pathology of Thought: Selected Sources, New York,
Columbia University Press, 1951, pp. 39-57.
__________ , "tiber die Vergleichung von Raumgestalten," in Friedrich Schumann,

ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912,
Leipzig, Barth, 1913, pp. 183-85.
__________ , Die Gestaltwahmehmungen, Stuttgart, Spemana, 1913.
, Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes, Jena, Fischer, 1918.
__________ , "Der Ursprung des Intellektes," Die Naturwissenschaften, 9 (1921),

pp. 144-51.
__________ , Die Krise der Psychologie (1927), repr. Frankfurt a.M., Ullsteia,
1978.
Buttner, A., Zweierlei Denken: Ein Beitrag zur Physiologie des Denkpn^, Leip
zig, Barth, 1910.
Busse, Ludwig, Geist und Korper, Seele und Leib, Leipzig, Durr, 1903.
Cassirer, Ernst, Substance and Function (1911), trans. W.C. Swabey & M.C.
Swabey, New York, Dover, 1953.
______________ , Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 3 vols. (1923-1929),

2nd ed., Oxford, Bruno Cassirer, 1954; trans. Ralph Mannheim, New Haven,
Yale University Press, 1953-57.
Cornelius, Hans, "tiber Verschmelzung und Analyse," Viertel.jahresschrift fur

wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 16 (1892), pp. 404-46; 17 (1893), pp. 30-
75.
______________ , Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft, Leipzig, Teubner,

1897.
, "fiber Gestaltqualitaten," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 22

(1900), pp. 101-21.
______________ , "Hans Cornelius," in Raymond Schmidt, ed., Die Philosophie

der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, vol. 2, Leipzig, Meiner, 1921,
pp. 81-99.
- 549 -
Cornelius, Hans, "Hans Cornelius," in Hermann Schwarz, ed., Deutsche syste-

matische Philosophie nach ihren Gestaltern, Berlin, Junker & Dunnhaupt
1934, vol. 2, pp. 1-52.
Dewey, John, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology," Psychological Review,

3 (1896), pp. 357-70.
__________ , Essays in Experimental Logic (1916), repr. New York, Dover, n.d.
Dexler, H., "Der heutige Stand der Lehre vom tierischen Gefaaren (Tierpsycho-
logie)," Lotos, 69 (1921), pp. 83-126.
, "Das Kohler-Wertheimersche Gestaltprinzip und die modeme Tierpsy-

chologie," Lotos, 69 (1921), pp. 143-228.
Dilthey, Wilhelm, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (1883), in Gesammel-

te Schriften, vol. 1, ed.- Bernhard Groeythuysen (1922), 4th ed., Gottin
gen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959.
Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, ed. Georg Misch (1923), 6 th

ed., Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974.
Driesch, Hans, Die Seele als elementarer Naturfaktor, Leipzig, Englemann, 1903.
, The Science and Philosophy of the Organism, 2 vols., London,

A. & C. Black, 1908.
, Leib und Seele. Eine Prufung des psychophysischen Grundpro-

blems, Leipzig, Reinicke, 1916.
________ , The Crisis in Psychology, Princeton, Princeton University Press,

1925; Grundprobleme der Psychologie. Ihre Krisis in der Gegenwart (1926),
2nd ed., Leipzig, Reinicke, 1929.
'Physische Gestalten' und Organismen," Annalen der Philoso

phie, 5 (1925), pp. 281-304.
_______ , Lebenserinnerungen, Munich & Basel, Reinhardt, 1951,
DuBois-Reymond, Emil, Uber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens [1872]. Die sieben
Weltratsel [18803. Zwei Vortrage, Leipzig, Veit, 1916
Dunlap, Knight, "The Nature of Perceived Relations," Psychological Review,

19 (1912), pp. 415-46.
- 550 -
Ebbinghaus, Hermann, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology

(1885), trans. Henry A. Ruger & Clara E. Bussenius (1913), repr. New
York, Dover Books, 1964.
_________________ , "tJber erklarende und beschreibende Psychologie, Zeit

_________________ , Grundzuge der Psychologie, vol. 1, Leipzig, Viet, 1897;

3rd ed., rev. Ernst Durr, Leipzig, Veit, 1911.
_________________ , "Die Psychologie jetzt und vor hundert Jahren," IVe

Congres Internationale de Psychologie, Paris, Alcan, 1901, pp. 49-60.
_________________ , '*Die geometrisch-optischen Tauschungen," in Friedrich

Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 1. Kongress fur experimentelle Psycholo
gie ... 1904, Leipzig, Barth, 1904, pp. 22-28.
, Abriss der Psychologie (1908), 4th ed., Leipzig. Viet.

1912.
Eckermann, Johann Peter, Gesprache mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Le-
bens (Artemis edition, vol. 24), Munich, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag,
1976.
Edinger, Ludwig, Vorlesungen uber den Bau der nervosen Zentralorgane der Men-
schen und der Tiere (1885), 8 th ed., 2 vols., Leipzig, Vogel, 1911.
Ehrenburg, H., Kritik der Psychologie als Wissenschaft: Forschungen nach den
systematischen Prinzipien der Erkenntnislehre Kants, Tubingen, Mohr,
1910.
Ehrenfels, Christian Freiherr von, "tiber Gestaltqualitaten" (1890), repr. in

Ferdinand Weinhandel, ed., Gestalthaftes Sehen, Darmstadt, Wissenschaft-
licheBuchgesellschaft, 1960, pp. 11-43.
, "Zuchtwahl und Monogramie," Politisch-anthro-

pologische Revue, 1 (1906), Hefte 8-9.
, "Monogamische Entwicklungsaussichten,"
Politisch-anthropologische Revue, 2 (1907), Heft 9.
, "Die Sexuelle Reform," Politisch-anthropo

logische Revue, 2 (1907), Heft 12.
, Sexualethik, Wiesbaden, J.F. Bergmann, 1907.
, Kosmogenie, Jena, Diederichs, 1916.
, "Weiterfuhrende Bemerkungen" (1921), repr.

in Weinhandel, ed., Gestalthaftes Sehen, pp. 47-60.
- 551 -
Ehrenfels, Christian Freiherr von, "Uber Gestaltqualitaten" (1932), repr.

in Weinhandel, ed., Gestalthaftes Sehen, pp. 61-63; trans. Mildred
Focht, Psychological Review, 44 (1937), pp. 521-24.
Einstein, Albert, tfber die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitatstheorie

(1916), 3rd, exp. ed., Braunschweig, Vieweg, 1918.
Erdmann, Benno, Logik, vol. 1 (1892), 2nd ed., Halle a.S., Niemeyer, 1907.
, Die wissenschaftliche Hypothesen uber Leib und Seele, Cologne,

Dprant, 1907.
, Grundzuge der Reproduktionspsychologie, Berlin & Leipzig, Ver-

ein Wissenschaftlicher Verleger, 1920.
, Die philosophischen Grundlagen von Helmholtzs Wahmehmungs-

theorie,*' Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Kl., 1921,
Nr. 1.
_____________ & Raymond Dodge, Psychologische Untersuchungen uber das Lesen

auf experimsnteller Grundlage, Halle a.S., Niemeyer, 1898.
Erismann, Theodor, Die Eigenart des Geistigen: Induktive und Einsichtige

Psychologie, Leipzig, Quelle & Meyer, 1924.
Ewald, Oskar, "Die deutsche Philosophie im Jahre 1912," Kant Studien, 20 (1915),
pp. 339-82.
___________ , "Die deutsche Philosophie im Jahre 1913," Kant Studien, 20 (1915),

pp. 29-64.
Exner, Sigmund, "Ober das Sehen von Bewegungen und die Theorie des zusammen-
gesetzten Auges," Sitzungsber. der Wiener Akad. der Wiss., 72 (1875),
pp. 156-90.
, Entwurf zu einer physiologischen Erklarung der psychischen Er-

scheinungen, I, Leipzig & Vienna, Deuticke, 1894.
Fechner, Gustav Theodor, Elemente der Psychophysik, 2 vols., Leipzig, Breit-

kopf & Hartel, 1860.
Fischer, Aloys, "Philosophie und Psychologie: Eine prinzipielle Betrachtung

zu einer aktuellen Frage der Fortbildung der Hochschule," Die deutsche
Schule, 17 (1913), pp. 338-47.
, "Der praktische Psychologe: Ein neuerBeruf," Der Kunstwart,

1913, pp. 305-13.
Flechsig, Paul, Gehim und Seele (1894), 2nd ed., Leipzig, Veit, 1896.
- 552 -
Frege, Gottlob, "Dr. E. Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic," trans. in J.

Mohanty, ed., Readings in Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations,
The Hague, Nijhoff, 1977, pp. 6-21.
Frischeisen-Kohler, Max, "Philosophie und Psychologie," Die Geisteswissen-

schaften, 1 (1914), pp. 371-73, 400-03.
Frobes, Joseph, Lehrbuch der experimentation Psychologie (1917-1918), 2nd &

3 rd rev. ed., 2 vols., Freiburg, Herder, vol. 1,1922-1923, vol. 2,1929.
Fuchs, Wilhelm, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen liber das simultane Hinterein-

ander auf derselben Sehrichtung," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 91 (1923),
pp. 145-235.
Geiger, Moritz, "tiber das Wesen und die Bedeutung der Einfuhlung," in Fried
rich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 4. Kongress fur experimentelle Psy
chologic ... 1910, Leipzig, Barth, 1911, pp. 29-73.
_____________, "Philosophie und Psychologie an den deutschen Universitaten,"

SuddeutscheMonatshefte, 10,2 (1913), pp. 752-55.
Gelb, Adhemar, "Theoretisches uber Gestaltqualitaten," Zeitschrift fur Psycho

logie, 58 (1911), pp. 1-59.
____________ , "Versuche im Gebiet der Raum- und Zeitanschaumg," in Fried

rich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle Psy
chologie ... 1914, Leipzig, Barth, 1914, pp. 36-42.
____________ , "Die'Farbenkonstanz'der Sehdinge," in Albrecht Bethe, et al.,

eds., Handbuch der normalen und pathologi sehen Physio logie, vol. 12:1,
Berlin, Springer, 1929, pp. 594-677.
____________ and Hurt Goldstein, "Zur Psychologie des optischen Wahrneh-

mungs- und Erkennungsvorganges," in A. Gelb & K. Goldstein, eds., Psy
chologische Analysen himpathologischer Falle, vol. 1, Leipzig, Barth,.
1920, pp. 1-142.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Farbenlehre, didaktischer Teil (1810), in Gedenk-

ausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gesprache Johann Wolfgang Goethes, 3rd ed.,
Zurich, Artemis, 1976; Theory of Colors, trans. Charles Eastlake (1840),
paperback ed., Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press, 1970.
Gotz, W., "Experimentelle Untersuchungen zum Problem der Sehgrossenkonstanz

beim Haushuhn,'.' Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 99 (1926), pp. 247-60.
Goldschmidt, Richard H., "Bericht uber den 5. Kongress der Gesellschaft fur
experimentelle Psychologie," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 24 (1912),
pp. 71-97.
- 553 -
Grunbaum, A.A., "Untersuchungen uber die Funktionen des Denkens und des
Gedachtnisses," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 36 (1917), pp. 423-
60; 37 (1918), pp. 75-112.
Haering, Theodor, Die Materialisierung des Geistes, Tubingen, Mohr, 1924.
Hartmann, Eduard von, Die moderae Psychologie: Eine kritische Geschichte der
deutschen Psychologie in der zweiten Halfte des 19. Jahrhundext's, Leip
zig, Haacke, 1901.
Hellpach, Willy, Die Grenzwissenschaften der Psychologie; Die biologischen

und soziologischen Grundlagen der Seelenforschung, vomehmlich fur die
Vertreter der Geisteswissenschaften und Padagogik, Leipzig, Durr, 1902.
______________ , review of Oswald Kulpe, 'Psychologie und Medizin and Karl

Marbe, Die Bedeutung der Psychologie fur die ubrigen Wissenschaften
und die Praxis, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 64 (1912), pp. 434-41.
______________ , Wirken in Wirren: Lebenserinnerungen. Eine Rechenschaft iiber

Wert und Gluck, Schuld und Sturz meiner Generation, 2 vols., Hamburg,
Wegner, 1948 & 1949.
Helmholtz, Hermann, Treatise on Physiological Optics, 3 vols. (1856-1867),

trans. J.P.C. Southall, New York, Optical Society of America, 1924-1925.
________________ , Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische

Grundlage fur die Theorie der Musik (1862), 4th rev. ed., Braunschweig,
Vieweg, 1877.
________________ , The Selected Writings of Hermann von Helmholtz, ed. Russell

Kahl, Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1971.
Henning, Hans, Psychologie der Gegenwart (1925), 2nd ed., Leipzig, Kroner,
1931.
Herbart, Johann Friedrich, Lehrbuch der Psychologie (1817), 3rd ed., ed. G.
Hartenstein, Leipzig, Voss, 1887..
Hering, Ewald, "tiber das Gedachtnis als allgemeine Funktion der organisier-
ten Materie," (1870), 3rd ed. .(1921), repr. in Oskar Loerke & Peter
Suhrkamp, eds., Deutscher Geist; Ein Lesebuch aus zwei Jahrhunderten,
Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp, 1966, vol. 2, pp. 364-84.
____________ , Outlines of a Theory of the Light Sense (1920), trans. Leo M.

Hurvich & Dorothea Jameson, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press,
1964.
____________ , Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, 2 vols., Leipzig, Thieme, 1931.
- 554 -
Hertz, Heinrich, Die Prinzipien der Mechanik im neuea Zus.ammenhang dargestellt

(Ges*elte Werke, vol. 3), Leipzig, Barth, 1894.
Heymanns, G., Die Gesetze und Elegente des vissenschaftlichen Deakens (1894),
4th ed., Leipzig, Barth, 1923.
Hillebrand, Franz, "Die Stabilitat der Ratnnwerte auf der Netzhaut," Zeit
, "Die Aussperrung der Psychologen," Zeitschrift fur Psycho

logie, 67 (1913), pp. 1-21.
, Ewald Hering: Eia Gedenkwort der Psychophysik, Berlin, Sprin

ger, 1918.
_______________ , Die Lehre von den Gesichtsempfindungen, ed. Franziska Hil

lebrand, Vienna, Springer, 1929.
Hitzig, Edward, Physiologische und klinische Untersuchungen uber das Gehim,

Berlin, Hirschvald, 1904.
Hohhouse, Leonard Trelawney, Mind in Evolution (1901), 2nd ed., London, Mac
millan, 1915; repr. Hew York, Arno Press, 1973.
Hoffding, Harald, Psychologie in Umrissea auf Grundlage der Erfahrung (1882),

5th ed., Leipzig, Reisland, 1914.
______________ , "iiber Wiedererkennen, Association und psychologische Akti-

vitat," Vierteljahresschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 13 (1889),
pp. 420-58; 14 (1890), pp. 27-54, 167-205, 293-316.
Hofler, Alois, Psychologie, Vienna & Prague, Tempsky, 1897.
____________, "Gestalt und Beziehung. Gestalt und Anschauung," Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 60 (1912), pp. 161-228.
Hume, David, A Treatise on Human Nature (1739), ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford,
The Clarendon Press, 1958.
, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1751), ed. J. McCormack

& Mary Whiton Calkins, Leipzig, Meiner, l9l3.
Hunter, Walter S., "The Question of Form-Perception," Journal of Animal Behavior,

3 (1913), pp. 329-33.
Husserl, Edmund, Philosophie der Arithmetik (1889), ed. Lothar Eley (Husserliana,
vol. 12), The Hague, Nijhoff, 1S70.
_____________ Logische Untersuchungen, 2 vols., Halle, Niemeyer, 1900-01.
"A Reply to a Critic of my Refutation of Logical Psycholo

gism' (1903), trans. Dallas Willard, in J.N. Mohanty, ed., Readings on
Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1977, pp. 33-
42.
- 555 -
Husserl, Edmund, "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft," Logos, 1 (1910-11),

pp. 289-341; "Philosophy as Rigorous Science", trans. Quentin Lauer,
in Edmund Husserl: Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, New York,
Harper Torchbooks, 1965, pp. 71-147.
______________, Ideas; General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1913),

trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson (1931), London, Collier-Macmillan, 1962.
_________ , "The Task and the Significance of the Logical Investigations,"

(1925), trans. J.N. Mohanty, in J.N. Mohanty, ed., Readings on Edmund
Husserls Logical Investigations, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1977, pp. 197-215.
______________, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness, ed. Martin

Heidegger (1928), trans. James S. Churchill, Bloomington, Indiana Uni
versity Press, 1964.
______________, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenolo

gy; An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (1954), trans. David
Carr, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1970.
Jaensch, Erich Rudolf, "Zur Analyse der Gesichtswahmehmung," Zeitschrift fur

Psychologie, Erganzungsband 4 (1909).
___________________ , "fiber die Wahraehmung des Raumes," Zeitschrift fur Psy

chologie, Erganzungsband 6 (1911).
James, William, The Principles of Psychology (1890), 2 vols., repr. New York,
Dover, 1950.
, A Pluralistic Universe (1909), repr. New York, Longmans, Green,

1912.
_____________, The Meaning of Truth; A Sequel to Pragmatism (1909), repr.

Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1971.
_____________, Essays in Radical Empiricism, New York, Longmans, Green, 1912.
Jaspers, Karl, Allgemeine Psychopathologie (1913), 6 th ed., Berlin, Springer,

1953.
____________ , Philosophische Autobiographie, exp. ed., Munich, Piper, 1977.
Judd, Charles H., "Wundt's System of Philosophy," Philosophical Review, 6 (1897),

pp. 370-85.
Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der reinen Vemunft (1781), ed. Raymund Schmidt (1924),
repr. Leipzig, Reclam, 1979.
- 556 -
Katz, David, "Die Erscheinungsweisen der Earben und ihre Beeinflussung durch
die individuelle Erfahrung," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, Erganzungsband
7 (1911) rev. & enl. ed. (1930); The World of Color, trans. Robert B.
MacLeod & C.W. Fox, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1935.
__________ , review of Wolfgang Kohler, *0ptische Untersuchungen am Schimpan-

sen und am Haushuhn,* Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 75 (1916), pp. 386-90.
__________ , "David Katz," in Edwin G. Boring, H.S. Langfeld, Heinz Werner &
R.M. Yerkes, eds., A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 4, Wor-
chester, Mass., Clark University Press, 1952, pp. 189-211.
St Geza Revesz, "Experimentell-psychologische Untersuchungen mit

Huhnem," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 50 (1909), pp. 93-116.
_______________________ , "Experimentelle Studien zur vergleichenden Psycho

logie (Versuche mit Huhnem)," Zeitschrift fur angewandte Psychologie,
18 (1921), pp. 307-20.
Katzaroff, W., "Contribution a 1*etude de la recognition," Archiv de psycholo

gie, 11 (1911), pp. 2-78.
Klages, Ludwig, Die Grundlagen der Charakterkunde (1910), 4th ed., Leipzig,
Barth, 1926.
_____________ , Ausdrucksbewegung und Gestaltungskraft: Grundlegung der Wissen-

schaft vom Ausdruck (1913), rev. ed. (1923), ed. Hans Eggert Schroder,
Munich, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1968.
Konig, Edmund, Wilhelm Wundt als Psychologe und Philosoph, 2nd ed., Stuttgart,
Frommann, 1902.
Kollwitz, Kathe, Ich sah die Welt in liebevollen Blicken, Kathe Kollwitz: Ein
Leben in Selbstzeugnissen, ed. Hans Kollwitz (1968), repr. Wiesbaden,
Fourier, n.d.
Kreibig, Josef KLemens, Die intellektuellenFunktionen: Untersuchungen viber Grenz-

fragen der Logik, Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie, Vienna, Holder, 1909.
Kries, Johannes von, "fiber die Natur gewisser mit den psychischen Vorgangen
verknupften Gehirazustande", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 8 (1895), pp. 1-
33.
____________________ , Uber die materiellen Grundlagen der Bewusstseinser-

scheinungen, Tubingen, Mohr, 1901.
____________________ , "Die Gesichtsempfindungen", in Willibald Nagel, ed.,

Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, Braunschweig, Vieweg, 1904,
vol. 3:1, pp. 109-282.
____________________ , Allgemeine Sinnesphysiologie, Leipzig, Vogel, 1923.
- 557 -
Krueger, Felix, "Beobachtungen an Zweiklangen, " Philosophische Studien,

16 (1900), pp. 307-79, 568-664.
, "Differenztone und Konsonanz", Archiv fur die gesamte Psycho-

logie, 1 (1903), pp. 207-75 ; 2 (1904), pp. 1-80.
_____________, "Die Tbeorie der Konsonanz I. Eine psychologische Auseinander-

setzung vornehmlich mit C. Stumpf und Th. Lipps", Psychologische Studien,
1 (1906), pp. 305-87; 2 (1907), pp. 205-55.
_____________ , fiber Entwicklungspsychologie. Ihre sachliche und geschichtli-

che Notwendigkeit, Leipzig, Engelmam, 1915.
_____________, Zur Philosophie und Psychologie der Ganzheit. Schriften aus

den Jahren 1918-1940, ed. Eugen Heuss, Berlin, Springer, 1953.
Kulpe, Oswald, Grundriss der Psychologie: Auf experimenteller Grundlage dar-

gestellt, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1893.
, Einleitung in die Philosophie, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1895.
, Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in Deutschland (1902), 6 th ed.,

Leipzig, Teubner, 1914.
, f,Versuche iiber Abstraktion," in Friedrich Schumann, ed. , Bericht

uber den 1. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1904, Leipzig,
Barth, 1904, pp. 56-68.
, Erkenntnistheorie und Naturwissenschaft, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1910.
, "fiber die moderne Psychologie des Dehkens" (1912), in Vorle-

sungen iiber Psychologie, ed. Karl Buhler, 2nd ed., Leipzig, Hirzel,
1921, pp. 297-331; abr. trans. in Jean M. Mandler & George Mandler, eds.,
Thinking; From Association to Gestalt, New York, Wiley, 1964, pp. 208-16.
, "Psychologie und Medizin," Zeitschrift fur Pathopsychologie,

1 (1912), pp. 187-267.
, Die Realisierung; Ein Beitrag zur Grundlegung der Realwissen-

schaften, vol. 1, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1912.
, "Philosophie," in Deutschland unter Kaiser Wilhelm II, Berlin,

Reimar Hobbing, 1914,. vol. 3, pp. 3-20.
Lamprecht, Karl, Moderne Geschichtswissenschaft, Freiburg i.Br., Heyfelder.

1905.
______________, "Eine Gefahr fur die Geisteswissenschaften," Die Zukunft,

83 (1913), pp. 16-24.
- 558 -
Lamprecht, Karl, "Eine Gefahr fur die Geisteswissenschaften. Aatwort an

H e r m Prof. Dr. Georg Simmel," Die Zukunft, 83 (1913), pp. 421-29.
Lashley, Karl S., "Visual Discrimination of Size and Form in the Albino Rat,
Journal of Animal Behavior, 2 (1912), pp. 310-31.
Lenin, Vladimir Illich, Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1908), trans. Peking,

Foreign Languages Press, 1972.
Lindworsky, Johannes, "Das schluBfolgemde Denken: Experimentelle Untersu-

chungen," Stimmen der Zeit, Erganzungsheft 1, Freiburg i.Br., Herder, 1916.
* Review of Wolfgang Kohler, 'Intelligenzprufungen an

Menschenaffen;"' Stimmen der Zeit. 95 (1918), pp. 386-93.
, Review of Wolfgang Kohler, Nachweis einfacher Struktur-

funktionen beim Schimpansen und beim Haushuhn,' Stimmen der Zeit, 97 (1919),
pp. 62-68.
Theoretical Psychology (1924), trans. Harry R. de Silva,

St. Louis, Herder, 1932.
Linke, Paul Ferdinand, "Die stroboskopischen Tauschungen und das Problem des
Sehens von Bewegungen," Psychologische Studien, 3 (1907), pp. 393-545.
___________________ , "Meine Theorie der stroboskopischen Tauschungen und Karl

Marbe," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 47 (1908), pp. 203-19.
___________________ , "Demonstration eines von der Firma Carl Zeiss zum Nach-
weise meiner Theorie der stroboskopischen Tauschungen angefertigten Kine-
matographen," in Friedrich Schumann., ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur
experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912, Leipzig, Barth, 1912, pp.,196-200.
___________________ , "Das paradoxe Bewegungsphanomen und die neue' Wahrneh-

mungslehre," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 33 (1915), pp. 261-65.
___________________ , Die Grundlagen der Wahrnahmungslehre: Untersuchungen

uber die Bedeutung der Gegenstandstheorie und Phanomenologie fur die ex
perimentelle Psychologie, Munich, Reinhardt, 1918; 2nd ed., 1929.
Lipps, G.F., Grundriss der Psychophysik, Leipzig, Goschen, 1903.
Lipps, Theodor, "Zu den Gestaltqualitaten," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 22

(1900), pp. 383-85.
, Einheiten und Relationen. Eine Skizze zur Psychologie der Ap-

_
perzeption, Leipzig, Barth, 1902.
t Leitfaden der Psychologie (1903), 3rd ed., Leipzig, Engelmann,

_
1909.
- 559 -
Lipps, Theodor, Naturwissenschaft und Weltanschauung. Vortrag, Heidelberg,

Winter, 1906.
Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1688), 2 vols., ed.

John W. Yolton, New York, Dutton, 1972.
Loeb, Jacques, The Mechanistic Conception of Life (1912), ed. Donald Fleming,
Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1964.
Lotze, Rudolf Hermann, Logik. Drei Bucher vom Denken, vom Untersuchen und
vom Erkennen, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1874.
, Grundzuge der Psychologie. Diktate aus den Vorles"gen,

Leipzig, Hirzel, 1881.
Mach, Ernst, "On the Effect of the Spatial Distribution of the Light Stimuli
on the Retina" (1865); "On the Physiological Effect of Spatially Distri
buted Light Stimuli (second essay)" (1866); "On the Dependence of Retinal
Points on One Another (1868); "On the Influence of Spatially and Tempo
rally Varying Light Stimuli on Visual Perception" (1906), trans. in
Floyd Ratliff, Mach Bands: Quantitative Studies on Neural Networks in the
Retina, San Francisco, Holden-Day, 1965, pp. 253-71, 272-84, 307-20, 321-32.
__________ , Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der
Arbeit, Prague, Calve, 1872.
__________ , Grundlinien der Lehre von den Bewegungsempfindungen, Leipzig,

Engelmann, 1875.
__________, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of

its Development (1883), trans. Thomas J. McCormack, 6 th ed., La Salle,
111., Open Court, 1960.
__________ , Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhaltnis des Physischen
zum Fsychischen (1886), 7th ed., Jena, Fischer, 1918; trans. of 5th ed.
CcM. Williams & Sydney Waterlow, New York, Dover, 1959.
__________ , Popularwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen (1896), 4th ed., Leipzig,

Barth, 1910.
__________ , "The Guiding Principles of My Scientific Theory of Knowledge and

Its Reception by My Contemporaries," (1910), trans. Ann Toulmin, in Stephen
Toulmin, ed., Physical Reality, New York,Harper & Row, 1970, pp. 28-43.
Maier, Heinrich, "Psychologie und Philosophie," in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,

Bericht iiber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1914,
Leipzig, Barth, 1914, pp. 93-99, 144-46.
- 560 -
Marbe, Karl, Experimental!psychologische Untersuchungen uber das Urteil.

Eine Einleitung in die Logik, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1901; excerpt trans.
George & Jean M. Mandler, in Jean Matter Mandler & George Mandler,
eds., Thinking: From Association to Gestalt, New York, John Wiley &
Sons., 1964, pp. 143-47.
__________ , Theorie der kinematischen Projektionen, Leipzig, Barth, 1910.
__________ , "Das Psychologische Institut," in Hundert Jahre bayrisch. Ein

Festbuch, Wurzburg, Universitats-Druckerei b. Stvirk, 1914, pp. 106-09.
__________ , "Die Bedeutung der Psychologie fur die ubrigen Wissenschaften

und die Praxis," Fortschritte der Psychologie und ihre Anwendungen,
1 (1913), pp. 5-82.
, Die Aktion gegen die Psychologie. Eine Abwehr, Leipzig, Teubner,

1913.
__________ , "Die Stellung und Behandlung der Psychologie an den deutschen

Pniversitaten," in Karl Buhler, ed., Bericht uber den 7. Kongress fur
experimentelle Psychologie ... 1921, Jena, Fischer, 1922, pp. 150 ff.
Marcuse, Ludwig, Mein zwanzigstes Jahrhundert: Auf dem Weg zu einer Auto-
biographie, Frankfurt a.M., Fischer, 1968.
Martius, Gotz, "fiber synthetische und analytische Psychologie," in Friedrich

Schumann,, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psycholo
gie ... 1912, Leipzig, Barth, 1912, pp. 261-81.
Marty, Anton, Patersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und

Sprachphilosophie, vol. 1, Halle a.S., Niemeyer, 1908.
Mauthner, Fritz, Die Sprache, Frankfurt a.M., Rutter & Loning, 1906.
, Erinnerungen, I: Prager Jugendjahre, Munich, Georg Muller,

1918.
Maxwell, James Clerk, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 2 vols.,

Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1873.
Mayer, A. & J. Orth, "Zur qualitativen Untersuchung der Associationen,"

Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 26 (1901), pp. 1-13; abr. trans. in George
Mandler & Jean M. Mandler, eds., Thinking: From Association to Gestalt,
New York, Wiley, 1964, pp. 135-41.
Meinong, Alexius, "Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationea" (1891),

in Alexius Meinong, Gesamtausgabe, eds. Rudolf Haller, Rudolf Kindinger,
& Roderick M. Chisholm, Graz, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,
1968 ff., vol. 1 , pp. 279-304.
_______________, "Beitrage zur Theorie der psychischen Analyse" (1893), in

Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1 , pp. 305-96.
- 561 -
Meinong, Alexius, "fiber Gegenstande hoherer Ordnung und deren Verhaltnis zur
inneren Wahraehmung," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 21 (1899), pp. 182-
272. Also in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2, pp. 377-480.
_______________, "fiber Gegenstandstheorie", in Alexius Meinong, ed., Unter-

suchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie, Leipzig, Barth, 1904, pp. 1-50.
_______________, Philosophenbriefe aus der wissenschaftlichen Korrespondenz

von Alexius Meinong, ed. Rudolf Kindinger, Graz, Akademische Druck- und
Verlagsanstalt, 1965.
Messer, August, "Experimentell-psychologische Untersuchungen-uber das Denken,"

Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie. 8 (1906), pp. 1-224; sel. trans.
George & Jean M. Mandler, in Jean Matter Mandler & George Mandler, eds.,
Thinking; From Association to Gestalt. New York, John Wiley & Sons,
1964, pp. 148-52.
_____________ .Empfindung und Denken, Leipzig, Quelle und Meyer, 1908.
_____________ , "HusserlTs Phanomenologie in ihrem Verhaltnis zur Psychologie,"

Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie," 22 (1911), pp. 117-29; 32 (1914),
pp. 52-67.
_____________ , "Die Bedeutung der Psychologie fur Padagogik, Medizin, Juris-

prudenz und Nationalokonomie," Jahrbucher der Philosophie, 2(1914), pp.
183-217.
_____________, Psychologie (1914), 5th ed., Leipzig, Meiner, 1934.
_____________, Einleitung in die Psycholgoie und die psychologischen Richtun-

gen der Gegenwart, Leipzig, Meiner, 1927.
Meumann, Eduard, Vorlesungen zur EinfGhrung in die experimentellePadagogik

und ihre psychologischen Grundlagen, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1907.
Meyerson, Emile, Identity and Reality (1908), trans. Kate Loewenberg, New York,
Dover, 1962.
Mill, John Stuart, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive (1843), 2nd
ed., 2 vols., London,Parker, 1846.
Monakow, Constantin von, '*Neue Gesichtspunkte in der Frage nach der Lokalisa-
tion im GroBhirn," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 54 (1910), pp. 161-82.
Mbog, Willy, Die deutsche Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts in ihren Hauptrich-
tungen und ihren Grundproblemen, Stuttgart, Enke, 1922.
Morgan, Conway Lloyd, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, London, Scott,

1894.
Muller, Aloys, "fiber psychophysische Wechselwirkung und das Energieprinzip,"

- 562 -
Muller, Aloys, "iiber die Moglichkeit einer durcb psychische Krafte bewirkten
Anderung der Energieverteilung in einem geschlossenen System," Zeit
schrift fur Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 134 (1909), pp. 151-66.
Muller, C., Die Apperzeptionstheorie von Wilhelm Wundt und Theodor Lipps und
ihre Weiterfuhrtmg in der Gegenwart, Phil. Diss. Munster, 1910.
Muller, Georg Elias, Zur Grundlegung der Psychophysik, Leipzig, Hofmann, 1879.
_________________ , "Zur Psychophysik der Gesichtsempfindungen," Zeitschrift

fur Psychologie, 10 (1896), pp. 1-82, 321-413; 14 (1897), pp. 1-76, 161-
96.
, Die Gesichtspunkte und die Tatsachen der psychophysischen

Methodik, Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1904.
_____________ , "Zur Analyse der Gedachtnistatigkeit und des Vorstel-

lungsverlaufes, III.," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, Erganzungsband 8
(1913).
, "Ansprache des Vorsitzenden," in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,

Bericht uber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1914,
, Komplextheorie und Gestalttheorie. Ein Beitrag zur Wahr-

nehmungspsychologie, Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1923
& A. Pilzecker, "Experimentelle Beitrage zur Lehre vom

Gedachtnis," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, Erganzungsband 1 (1900).
Miiasterberg, Hugo, 'Tiber Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie," (Schriften-

reihe der Gesellschaft fur Psychologische Forschung, Heft 2), Leipzig,
Abel, 1891, pp. 94-272.
, Grundzuge der Psychologie (1900), 2nd ed., Leipzig, Barth,

1918.
Miisil, Robert, Beitrag zur Beurteilung der Lehren Machs. Phil. Diss. Berlin,
1908.
_, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Adolph Frisd, vol. 2, Reinbek b. Hamburg,

Rowohlt, 1978.
Natorp, Paul, Allgemeine Psychologie nach kritischer Methode, I: Objekt und

Methode der Psychologie, Tubingen, Mohr, 1912.
___________ , "Das akademische Erbe Hermann Cohens: Psychologie oder Philoso

phie? Frankfurter Zeitung, 12 October 1912.
- 563 -
Ostwald, Wilhelm, Vorlesungen iiber Naturphilosophie, Leipzig, Veit, 1902.
Paulsen, Friedrich, Einleitung in die Philosophie (1892), 36-38th ed., Stutt

gart & Berlin, Cotta, 1923.
________________ , The German Universities and University Study, trans.

Frank Thilly& William W. Elwang, New York, Scribner's, 1906.
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physio

logical Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (1927), trans. & ed. G.V. Anrep,
repr. New York, Dover, 1960.
Pfander, Alexander, Einfuhrung in die Psychologie, Leipzig, Barth, 1904.
Pfordten, Otto von der, "Beschreibende und erklarende Psychologie," Archiv

fur die gesamte Psychologie, 28 (1913), pp. 302-23.
Pfungst, Oskar, Das Pferd des H e r m von Osten (Der kluge Hans). Ein Beitrag
1 zur experimentellen Tier- und Menschen-Psychologie, with introduction and
supplements by Carl Stumpf, Leipzig, Barth, 1907.
_____________ , "Zur Psychologie der Affen," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Be

richt uber den 5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912, Leip
zig, Barth, 1912, pp. 200-05.
Planck, Max, "The Unity of the Physical World Picture" (1909), & "On Mach's
Theory of Physical Knowledge: A Reply" (1910), trans. Ann Toulmin, in
Stephen, Toulmin, ed., Physical Reality, New York, Harper & Row, 1970,
pp. 1-27, 44-52.
__________ , Eight Lectures in Theoretical Physics, Delivered at Columbia

University in 1909 (1910), trans. A.P. Wills, New York, Columbia Uni
__________ , Physikalische Abhandlungen und Vortrage, vol. 3, Braunschweig,

Vieweg, 1958.
Plessner, Helmuth, Die Einheit der Sinne. Grundlinien einer Aesthesiologie

des Geistes, Bonn, Cohen, 1923.
Poincare, Henri, Science and Hypothesis (1903), trans. New York. Dover Books.
1952.
Poppelreuter, Walter, "tiber die Bedeutung der scheinbare GroBe und Gestalt fur
die Gesichtswahmehmung, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 54 (1910), pp. 311-
61
______ , "Beitrage zur Raumpsychologie," Zeitschrift fur Psycho

logie, 58 (1911), pp. 208-62.
- 564 -
Poppelreuter, Walter, "Zwei elementare Reproduktionsgesetze zur Erklarung

einiger nonerer Denk- und Willensvorgange," in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,
Bericht uber den 5. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912,
Popper, Karl, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, La Salle, 111.,

Open Court, 1976.
Rahn, Carl, "The Relation of Sensation to Other Categories in Contemporary Psy

chology: A Study in the Psychology of Thinking," Psychological Monographs,
16 (1913), No. 1, Whole No. 67.
Ranschburg, Paul, "Cher die Bedeutung der Ahnlichkeit beim Erlernen, Behalten
und bei der Reproduktion," Journal fur Psychologie und Neurologie, 5
(1905), pp. 93-127.
Rehmke, Johannes, Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Psychologie (1894), 3rd. ed., Leip
zig, Quelle & Meyer, 1926.
Rickert, Heinrich, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (1898), 2nd rev.,

& enl. ed., Tubingen, Mohr, 1910.
_______________ , "Vom Begriff der Philosophie," Logos, 1 (1910-1911), pp. 1-34.
_______________ , "Zur Besetzung der philosophischen Professuren mit Vertre-

tern der experimentellen Psychologie," Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 March 1913.
_______________ , Die Philosophie des Lebens. Darstellung und Kritik der phi
losophischen Modestromungen imserer Zeit, Tubingen, Mohr, 1920.
Riehl, Alois, Der philosophische Kritizismns und seine Bedeutung fur die posi-
tiven Wissenschaften, vol. 1 (1876), 2nd ed., Leipzig, Engelmann, 1908.
, Zur Einfuhrung in die Philosophie der Gegenwart. Acht Vortrage,

2nd ed., Leipzig, Teuber, 1904.
Rothacker, Erich, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (1919), 2nd ed.,

Tubingen, Mohr, 1930.
Rothmann, Max, "Ober die Errichtung einer Station zur psychologischen und h i m
physiologischen Erforschung der Menschenaffen," Berliner klinische Wochen-
schrift, 1912, Nr. 42.
____________ , & Eugen Teuber, "Aus der Anthropoidenstation auf Tenerifa, I:

Ziele und Aufgaben der Station sowie erste Beobachtungen an den auf ihr
gehaltenen Schimpansen" Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss.,
Phys.-Math. Kl., 1915, Nr. 2.
- 565 -
Rubin, Edgar, "Die visuelle Wahrnehmung von Figuren," in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,
Bericht iiber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1914 (Leip
zig, 1914), pp. 60-62.
___________ , Yisuell wahrgenommene Figuren (1915), trans. Peter Collett, Copen

hagen, Gyldenalske, 1921.
Russell, Bertrand, The Problems of Philosophy (1912), repr. Oxford, Oxford Uni
Schapp, Wilhelm, Beitrage zur Phanomenologje der Wahmehmung, Gottingen, Kaest-

ner, 1910.
Scheler, Max, '*Ethik," Jahrbucher der Philosophie, 2 (1914), pp. 81-118.
___________ , Wesen und Formen der Sympathie (1913), 2nd ed., Bonn, Cohen, 1923.
Schiche, E., "Die Psychologie der Anthropoiden im Lichte einiger neuerer Ar-
beiten. Sanmelbericht," Zeitschrift fur angewandte Psychologie, 18 (1921),
pp. 343-55; 22 (1923), pp. 292-300.
Schlick, Moritz, Allgemeine Erkenatnistheorie, Berlin, Springer, 1918.
______________, "Naturphilosophie," in Max Dessoir, ed., Lehrbuch der Philo

sophic, Berlin, Springer, 1925, vol. 2, pp. 397-495.
Schultz, Paul, Gehirn und Seele, Leipzig, Barth, 1906.
Schultze, F.E. Otto, "Einige Hauptgesichtspunkte der Beschreibung in der Ele-

mentarpsychologie," Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, 8 (1906), pp. 241-
Schulz, Adolf John, "Untersuchung uber die Wirkung gleicher Reize auf die Auf
fassung bei momentaner Exposition," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 52 (1909),
pp. 110-47.
Schumann, Friedrich, "Zur Psychologie der Zeitanscbauung," Zeitschrift fur Psy

chologie, 17 (1898), pp. 106-48.
_________________ , "Beitrage zur Analyse der Gesichtswahmehmungen," Zeit-

schrift fur Psychologie, 23 (1900), pp. 1-32; 24 (1900), pp. 1-33; 30
(1902), pp. 241-91, 321-39; 36 (1904), pp. 161-85.
_________________ , "Die Erkennung von Buchstaben und Worten bei momentaner

Beleuchtung," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht iiber den 1 . Kongress fur
experimentelle Psychologie ... 1904, Leipzig, Barth, 1904, pp. 34-40.
- 566 -
Schumann, Friedrich, "Zur Psychologie des Lesens," in Friedrich Schumann, ed.,

Bericht uber den 2. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1906,
_________________ , "fiber einige Hauptprobleme der Lehre von den Gesichts-

wahrnehmungen," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht uber den 5. Kongress
fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912, Leipzig, Barth, 1912, pp. 179-83.
_________________ , "Untersuchungen fiber die psychologische Grundprobleme der

Tiefenwahmehmung. IX. Die Dimension des Sehraumes," Zeitschrift ffir Psy
chologie, 86 (1921), pp. 253-77.
Selz, Otto, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen fiber den Verlauf determinierter

intellektueller Prozesse," in Friedrich Schumann, ed., Bericht fiber den
5. Kongress ffir experimentelle Psychologie ... 1912, Leipzig, Barth, 1913,
pp. 229-34.
, fiber die Gesetze des geordneten Denkverlaufs, Stuttgart, Spemann,

1913.
, "Komplextheorie und Konstellationstheorie," Zeitschrift ffir Psycho

logie, 83 (1920), pp. 211-34.
, Zur Psychologie des produktiven Denkens und des Irrtums, Bonn, Cohen,
1922.
Semon, Richard, Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen
Geschehens (1904), 2nd ed., Leipzig, Engelmann, 1908.
_____________, Die mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Original-

empfindungen, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1909.
Seyfert, R., "fiber die Auffassung einfacher Raumformen," Philosophische Studien,

14 (1898), pp. 550-566; 18 (1902), pp. 189-214.
Sherrington, Charles Scott, The Integrative Action of the NervousSystem(1906),

repr. New York, A m o Press, 1973.
Sigwart, Christoph, Logik, 2vols., Tfibingen, Laupp, 1873-1878.
Simmel, Georg, "An Herra Prof. Karl Lamprecht," Die Zukunft. 83(1913). pp. 230-
34.
Sokolowsky, Alexander, Beobachtungen fiber die Psyche der Menschenaffen, Frank

furt a.M., Neuer Frankfurter Verlag, 1908.
Sommer, Robert, "Zur Geschichte der Kongresse ffir experimentelle Psychologie,"

in Gustav Kafka, ed., Bericht fiber den 12. Kongress der Deutschen Gesell-
schaft ffir Psychologie ... 1931, Jena, Fischer, 1932, pp. 9-12.
- 567 -
Spinoza, Baruch, On the Improvement of the Understanding; The Ethics; Corres

pondence (orig.: The Works of Spinoza, vol. 2), trans. R.H.M. Elwes,
New York, Dover, 1955.
Spranger, Eduard, "Zum Streit um die Psychologie," Deutsche Literaturzeitung,

34 (1913), pp. 709-16.
_______________, Lebensformen: Geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie und Ethik

der Personlichkeit (1921), 6 th ed., Halle a.S., Niemeyer, 1928.
______________ ,Gesammelte Schriften VII. Briefe 1901-1963, ed. Hans-Walter

Bahr, Tubingen, Niemeyer, 1978.
Stein, Philipp, "Tatbestandsdiagnostisc'ne Versuche bei Untersuchungengefangenen,"

Stern, William, "Psychische Prasenzzeit", Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 13 (1897),

pp. 325-49.
, Psychologie der Veranderungsauffassung, Breslau, Preuss & Junger,

1898.
, "Der Tonvariator," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 30 (1903), pp.

422-32.
_____________, "Die psychologische Arbeit des 19. Jahrhunderts, insbesondere

in Deutschland," Zeitschrift fur padagogische Psychologie, 2 (1900), pp.
329-52, 413-36.
, Person und Sache, System des kritischen Personalismus. Band I,

Ableitung und Grundlehre des kritischen Personalismus, Leipzig, Barth, 1906.
_____________ , Psychologie der fruhen Kindheit bis zum sechsten Lebensjahre

(1914), 6 th ed., Leipzig, Quelle & Meyer, 1930.
_____________ , "William Stern," in Carl Murchison, ed., A History of Psychology

in Autobiography, vol. 1, Worcester, Mass., Clark University Press, 1930,
pp. 335-88.
Storring, Gustav, Einfuhrung in die Erkenntnistheorie; Eine Auseinandersetzung

mit dem Positivismus und dam erkenntnistheoretischen Idealismus, Leipzig,
Engelmann, 1909.
Stout, George Prederick, Analytic Psychology, 2 vols., London, Soimenschein,

1909.
Sttmpf, Carl, tiber den psychologischen Ursprung der Raumvorstellung, Leipzig,

Hirzel, 1873.
___________ , Tonpsychologie, Leipzig, Hirzel, vol. 1, 1883; vol. 2, 1890.
- 568 -
Stumpf, Carl, "Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie," Abhandl. der konigl. bayr.

Akad. der Wiss., I. Kl., 19 (1891), pp. 467-516.
, "Zum Begriffe der Lokalzeichen, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 4

(1893), pp. 70-74.
___________ , "Hermann von Helmholtz and the New Psychology," Psychological

Review, 2 (1895), pp. 1-12.
___________ , "Antrittsrede," Sitzungsber. der kSnigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss.,

1895, pp. 735-38.
___________ , "Eroffnungsrede (uber Leib und Seele)," in Dritter internationa-

ler Kongress fur Psychologie in Munchen von 4. bis 7. August 1896, Munich,
Lehmann, 1897, pp. 3-16.
___________ , "Zur Methodik der Kinderpsychologie," Zeitschrift fur padagogische

Psychologie, 2 (1900), pp. 1-21.
___________ , "Eigenartige Sprachentwicklung eines Kindes," Zeitschrift fur Psy

chologie, 3 (1901), pp. 419-47.
__________ , "Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen," Abhandl. der konigl.

Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Cl., 1906.
_________ , "Zur Einteilung der Wissenschaften," Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss.

Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Cl., 1906, no. 5.
__________ , "Das Phonogrammarchiv," Internationale Wochenschrift fur Wissen-

schaft, Runst und Technik, 22 February 1908.
__________ , "Das Psychologische Institut," in Max Lenz, Geschichte der konigl.

Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu Berlin, vol. 3, Wissenschaftliche Anstalten,
Halle a.S., Verlag des Waisenhauses, 1910, pp. 202-07.
__________ , Philosophische Reden und Vortrage, Leipzig, Barth, 1910.
__________ , Die Anfange der Musik, Leipzig, Barth, 1911.
__________ , "Ober neuere Untersuchungen zur Tonlehre," in Friedrich Schumann,

ed., Bericht uber den 6 . Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologie ... 1914,
__________ , "Zum Gedachtnis Lotzes," Kant Studien, 22 (1917), pp. 1-26.
__________ , "Empfindung und Vorstellung," Abhandl. der konigl. Preuss. Akad.

der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Cl., 1918.
__________ , "Reminiscences of Franz Brentano" (1919), trans. Linda L. McAlister

und Margarete Shattle, in Linda L. McAlister, ed., The Philosophy of Franz
Brentano, London, Duckworth, 1976, pp. 10-46.
- 569 -
Stumpf, Carl, "Carl Stumpf (1924), trans. Thekla Hodge & Suzanne K. Langer,
in Carl Murchison, ed., A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 1,
Worcester, Mass., Clark University Press, 1930, pp. 389-441.
___________ , "William James nach seinen Briefen," Kant Studien, 32 (1927),

pp. 205-41.
___________ , Die Sprachlaute: Experimentell-phonetische Untersuchungen nebst

einem Anhang uber Instrumental-KLange, Berlin, Springer, 1926.
Thorndike, Edward Lee, Animal Intelligence; Experimental Studies (1911),

repr. New York, Hafner, 1965.
Titchener, Edward Bradford, Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the

Thought Processes, New York, Macmillan, 1909.
________________________ , A Textbook of Psychology, New York, Macmillan, 1910.
, Systematic Psychology: Prolegomena (1929), reissue

Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1972.
Twardowski, Kasimir, Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand derVorstellungpn:

Eine psychologische Untersuchung, Vienna, Holder, 1894.
Oberweg, Friedrich, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Vierter Teil:

Die deutsche Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts und der Gegenwart, 12th ed.,
rev. by Traugott Konstantin Osterreich, Berlin, Mittler, 1923.
Vaihinger, Hans, Die Philosophie des 'Als-Ob*: System der theoretischen, prak-
tischen und religiSsen Fiktionen der Menschheit (1911), 3rd ed., Leipzig,
Meiner, 1918.
Verwora, Max, Allgemeine Physiologie (1894), 6 th ed., Jena, Fischer, 1915.
___________ , "Die Mechanik des Geistes," (1906), in Wilhelm Ebel, ed., Got-
tinger Universitatsreden aus zwei Jahrhunderten, Gottingen, Vandp-nbr>prft
& Ruprecht, 1978, pp. 452-64.
, Die Mechanik des Geisteslebens, 2nd ed., Leipzig, Teubner, 1910.
Volkelt, Hans, Die Vorstellungen der Tiere, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1914.
- 570 -
Waldeyer, Wilhelm, "Ansprache," Sitzungsber. der kSnigl. Preuss. Akad. der

Wiss., 1914, 1, pp. 77-84.
_______________ , "Die Anthropoidenstation auf Teneriffa',' Sitzungsber. der

konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss., 1917, 1, pp. 401-02.
_______________ , Lebenserinnerungen, Bonn, Cohen, 1921.
Wartensleben,Gabrielle Grafin von, "iiber den Einfluss der Zwischenzeit auf

die Reproduktion gelesener Buchstaben," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 64
(1913), pp. 321-85.
_______________________________ , Die christliche Personlichkeit im Ideal-

bild: Eine Beschreibung sub specie psychologica, Kempten&Kosel, Munich, 1914.
Watt, Henry J., "Experimental Contribution to a Theory of Thinking" (1905),

repr. in George Mandler & Jean M. Mandler, Thinking; From Association to
Gestalt, New York, Wiley, 1964, pp. 189-200.
_____________ , "The Psychology of Visual Motion," British Journal of Psycho

logy, 6 (1912), pp. 26-43.
Weber, Max, Gesammelte Anfsatze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 2nd ed., Tubingen,

Mohr, 1951.
Willy, Rudolf, Die Krisis in der Psychologie, Leipzig, Reisland, 1899.
Windelband, Wilhelm, A History of Philosophy, 2 vols., trans. James H. Tufts

(1901), repr. New York, Harper, 1958.
_________________ , Die Philosophie im deutschen Geistesleben des 19. Jahr-

hunderts. Funf Vorlesungen, Tubingen, Mohr, 1909.
_________________ , Praludien. Aufsatze und Reden zur Einleitung in die Phi

losophie, 7th & 8 th ed., 2 vols., Tubingen, Mohr, 1921.
Witasek, Stephan, "Beitrage zur Theorie der Komplexionen und Relationen,"

_______________, "iiber die Natur der geometrischen-optischen Tauschungen,"

_______________, Grundlinien der Psychologie, Leipzig, Durr, 1908.
_______________, Psychologie der Raumwahmehmung des Auges, Heidelberg, Win

ter, 1910.
Wittfogel, Karl August, "Die hydraulische Gesellschaft und das Gespenst der
asiatischen Restauration: Gesprach mit Karl August Wittfogel," in Matthias
Greffrath, Die Zerstorung einer Zukunft: Gesprache mit emigrierten So-
zialwissenschaftlem, Reinbek b. Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1979, pp. 299-346.
- 571 -
Worringer, Wilhelm, Abstraktion und Einfuhlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsycho-

logie (1908), new ed., Munich, Piper, 1959.
Wundt, Wilhelm, "Contribution to the Theory of Sensory Perception. Intro

duction. On the Methods in Psychology" (1862), trans. in Thome Shipley,
ed., Classics in Psychology, New York, Philosophical Library, 1961,
pp. 51-78.
, Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie (1874), 6 th ed.,

3 vols., Leipzig, Engelmann, 1908-1911.
, Logik. Eine Untersuchung der Prinzipien der Erkenntnis und

der Methoden wissenschaftlicher Forschung (1880-1883), 4th ed., 3 vols.,
Stuttgart, Enke:, 1919-1921.
, "Psychophysik und experimentelle Psychologie," in Wilhelm

Lexis, ed., Die deutschen IJniversitaten. Fur die Universitatsausstellung
in Chicago 1893, Berlin, Asher, 1893, pp. 450-57.
, "Uber psychische Kausalitat und das Princip des psychophysischen

Parallelismus," Philosophische Studien, 10 (1894), pp. 1-124.
, Grundriss der Psychologie (18976), 8 th ed., Leipzig, Engelmann,

1907.
, "Das psychologische Institut," Festschrift zur Feier des

500jahrigen Bestehens der Universitat Leipzig, Leipzig, 1909, vol. 4,
pp.118-33.
_____________ , Einfuhrung in die Psychologie, Leipzig, Voigtlander, 1911.
, Erlebtes und Erkanntes, Stuttgart, Kroner, 1920.
, Kleine Schriften, vol. 3, ed. Max Wundt, Stuttgart, Kroner,

1921.
Yerkes, RobertM., "The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes," Behavior Monographs,
vol. 3,No. 1, Cambridge & Boston, Holt, 1916.
________________ ,& Ada W. Yerkes, The Great Apes: A Study in Anthropoid Life
_
(1929), repr. New York, Johnson Reprints, 1970.
, & John B. Watson, "Methods of Studying Vision in Animals,"

Behavior Monographs, vol. 1, No. 2, Cambridge & Boston, Holt, 1911.
Ziehen, Theodor, Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychoxagie (1890), 5th ed.,

Jena, Fischer, 1900.
- 572 -
Ziehen, Theodor, 'Theodor Ziehen," in Carl Murchison, ed., A History of Psy

chology in Autobiography, vol. 1, Worcester, Mass., Clark University
Press, 1930, pp. 471-89.
C. Serial Publications, with years examined
Akademie fur Sozial und Handelswissenschaften zu Frankfurt am M a i n ;

Die Vorlesungen, Frankfurt a.M.. 1903-1914.
Minerva, Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt, Berlin, 1895-1921.
Verzeichnis der Vorlesungen gehalten an der Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat

zu Berlin, Berlin, 1906-1921.
III. Secondary Sources
Aarons, L., "Visual Apparent Movement Research: Review 1935-1955 and Biblio
graphy 1955-1963," Perception and Motor Skills. Monograph Supplement. 18
(1964), pp. 239-74.
Agassi, Joseph, "Toward a Historiography of Science," History and Theory,

2 (1963). ----- ----------
_____________ , Faraday asa Natural Philosopher, Chicago,University of Chi

cago Press, 1971.
Allen, Garland Edward, Life Science in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge,

England, Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Amin, Ismail, Associationspsychologie und Gestaltpsychologie: Eine problemge

schichtliche Studie mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Berliner Schule,
Bern & Frankfurt a.M., H. & P. Lang, 1973.
Arnheim, Rudolf, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of theCreative Eye,

Berkeley, University of California Press, 1954; new version, 1974.
, Visual Thinking, Berkeley. University of California Press.

1969.
- 573 -
Arnheim, Rudolf, Entropy and Art: An Essay on Order and Disorder, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1971.
Asch, Solomon E., "Max Wertheimers Contribution to Modern Psychology," Social

Research, 13 (1946), pp. 81-102.
, "Wolfgang Kohler: 1887-1967," American Journal of Psychology,

81 (1968), pp. 110-19.
_______________, "Gestalt Theory," in David L. Sills, ed., International En

cyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1968, vol. 6 ,
pp. 158-75.
Ash, Mitchell G., "Fragments of the Whole: Documents of the History of Gestalt
Psychology in the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany and the
German Democratic Republic," in Josef Brozek & Ludwig Pongratz, eds.,
Historiography of Modern Psychology, Toronto, Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 187-200.
_______________, "Experimental Psychology in Germany Before 1914: Aspects of

an Academic Identity Problem," Psychological Research, 42 (1980), pp. 75-
86.
_______________, "Wilhelm Wundt and Oswald Kiilpe on the Institutional Status

of Psychology: An Academic Controversy in Historical Context," in Wolf
gang G. Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wiundt Studies, Toronto, Hcgrefe,
1980, pp. 396-421.
_______________, "Academic Politics in the History of Science: Experimental

Psychology in Germany, 1879-1941," Central European History, 13 (1980),
pp. 255-86.
, "Zu einer Annahme von Peter Keiler: Eine Berichtigung,"

Gestalt Theory, 3 (1981), pp. 153-54.
_______________, "Epilogue: Reflections on Psychology in History," in William

R. Woodward & Mitchell G. Ash, eds., The Problematic Science: Psychology
in Nineteenth-Century Thought, New York, Praeger, 1982, pp. 347-67.
_______________, "The Self-Presentation of a Discipline: History of Psycholo

gy in the United States Between Pedagogy and Scholarship," Sociology of
the Sciences Yearbook, vol. 7, Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1983, in press.
Aster, Ernst von, Geschichte der Philosophie, 15th ed., Stuttgart, Kroner, 1975.
Ayer, Alfred Jules, The Origins of Pragmatism: Studies in the Philosophy of

Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, New York, Macmillan, 1968.
Badash, Lawrence, "The Completeness of Nineteenth-Century Science," Isis, 63

(1972), pp. 48-58.
- 574 -
Baeumker, Clemens, "Oswald Kulpe," Jahrbuch der konigl. bayr. Akad. der Wiss.,
1916, pp. 73-107.
Beck, Lewis White, "German Philosophy," in Paul Edwards, ed., Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, New York, Macmillan & The Free Press, 1967, vol. 3, pp. 291-
309.
Ben-David, Joseph, The Scientists Role in Society, Englewood Cliffs, New Jer
sey, Prentice-Hall, 1971.
___________ , & Randall Collins, -"Social Factors in the Origin of a New

Science: The Case of Psychology," American Sociological Review, 31 (1966),
pp. 451-65.
Berghahn, Wilfried, Robert Musil in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Rein-

bek b. Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1963.
Bergius, Rudolf, "Wolfgang Kohler zum Gedenken," Psychologische Forschung, 31

(1967), pp. i-v.
Bergmann, Gustav, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong, Madison, Univer

sity of Wisconsin Press, 1967.
, "The Problem of Relations in Classical Psychology" (1952),

in The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism, 2nd ed., Madison, University of
Wisconsin Press, 1967, pp. 277-99.
Berkson, William, Fields of Force: The Development of a World View from Fara
day to Einstein, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974.
Bernal, J.D., Science in History (1954), paperback ed., 4 vols., Harmondsworth,

Penguin Books, 1969.
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, General Systems Theory: Foundations: Development,

Applications, New York, Brazilier, 1968.
Bischof, Norbert, "Erkenntnistheoretische Grundlagenprobleme der Wahmehmungs-

psychologie," in Kurt Gottschaldt, et al., eds., Handbuch der Psychologie.
Allgemeine Psychologie I. Der Aufbau des Erkennens 1. Wahmehmung und
Bewegung, ed. Wolfgang Metzger, Gottingen, Hogrefe, 1966, pp. 21-78.
Blackmore, John T., Ernst Mach: His Work, Life and Influence, Berkeley, Univer
sity of California Press, 1972.
Bleuel, Hans Peter, Deutschlands Bekenner: Professoren zwischen Kaiserreich

und Diktatur, Bern, Scherz, 1968.
Blumenthal, Arthur L., "A Reappraisal of Wilhelm Wundt," American Psychologist,

30 (1975), pp. 1081-86.
- 575 -
Bock, Klaus-Dieter, Strukturgeschichte der Assistentur; Personalgefuge, Wert-

und Zielvorstellungen in der deatschen Universitat des 19. and 20. Jahr-
hunderts, Dusseldorf, Bertelsmann, 1972.
Bohme, Gemot, Altemativen der Wissenschaft, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp, 1980.
Bogard, Paul A., "Heaps or Wholes: Aristotle's Explanation of Compound Bodies,"

Isis, 70 (1979), pp. 11-30.
Boring, Edwin G., A History of Experimental Psychology (1929), 2nd ed., Hew
York, Appleton Century Crofts, 1950.
______________ , Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psy

chology, New York, Appleton Century Crofts, 1942.
Borscheid, Peter, Naturwissenschaft, Staat und Industrie in Baden 1848-1914,

Stuttgart, KLett, 1976.
Bringmann, Wolfgang G., W.D.G. Balance & Rand S. Evans, "Wilhelm Wundt, 1832-
1920: A Brief Biographical Sketch," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 11 (1975),
pp. 287-97.
, Norma J. Bringmann & Gustav Ungerer, "The Establish

ment of Wundt's Leipzig Laboratory: An Archival and Documentary Study,"
in Wolfgang G. Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, Toronto,
Hogrefe, 1980,__pp. 123-57.
____________________ , & Gustav A. lingerer, "Experimental versus Educational

Psychology:Wilhelm Wundt's Letters to Ernst Meumann," Psychological Re
search, 42 (1980), pp. 57-74.
Brod, Max, Streitbares Leben: Eine Autobiographie, Munich, Kindler, i960.
, Der Prager Kreis (1969), paperback ed., Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp,

1979.
Brown, Jason, Mind, Brain and Consciousness: The Neuropsychology of Cognition,

New York, Academic Press, 1977.
Brunswik, Egon, "Prinzipienfragen der Gestalttheorie," in Egon Brunswik, et al.,

Beitrage zur Problemgescliichte der Psychologie: Festschrift zu Karl Buh-
lers 50. Geburtstag, Jena, Fischer, 1929, pp. 78-149.
Brush, Stephen G., "Thermodynamics and History," Graduate Journal, 7 (1967),

pp. 477-565.
_______________ , The Kind of Motion We Call Heat: A History of the Kinetic

Theory of Gases in the Nineteenth Century, 2 vols., Amsterdam, North Hol
land, 1976.
- 576 -
Burchardt, Lothar, Wissenschaftspolitik im vilhel^TH schen Deutschland. Vor-

geschichte, Griindung und Aufbau der Kaiser-Wilbelm-Gesellschaft zur For-
derung der Wissenschaften, Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975.
Burger, Hans-Georg, "Anfange rad Bedeutung der experimentellen Psychologie in

Giessen,11 Giessener Universitatsblatter, Heft 1, 1975, pp. 78-98.
Burnham, John C., "Thorndikes Puzzle Boxes," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 8 (1972),
pp. 159-67.
Busch, Alexander, Die Geschichte der Privatdozenten. Eine soziologische Stu-

die zur groBbetrieblichen Entwicklung der deutschen Universitaten, Stutt
gart, Enke, 1959.
Buss, Allan R., "The Emerging Field of the Sociology of Psychological Know
ledge," (1975) repr. in Allan R. Buss, ed., Psychology in Social Context,
New York, Irvington, 1979, pp. 1-24.
_____________ , "The Structure of Psychological Revolutions," Jour. Hist. Behav.

Sci., 14 (1978), pp. 57-64.
Capek, Milic, Bergson and Modern Physics: A Re-interpretation and Re-evaluation,

Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1971.
Cassirer, Ernst, The Problem of Knowledge; Philosophy, Science and History

Since Hegel (1940), trans. W.H. Woglom. & C.W. Hendel (1953), paperback
ed., New Haven, Yale University Press, 1969.
Chaplin, James P., & T.S. Krawiec, Systems and Theories of Psychology (I960),
3rd ed., New York, Holt, 1974.
Churchill, Frederick B., "From Machine-Theory to Entelechy: Two Studies in

Developmental Teleology," Journal of the History of Biology, 2 (1969),
pp. 165-86.
Clark, Ronald W., Einstein: The Life and Times, New York, World, 1971.
Cohen, Gary B., "Jews in German Society: Prague, 1860-1914," in David Bronson,
ed., Jews and Germans from 1860 to 1933: The Problematic Synthesis, Hei
delberg, Winter, 1979, pp. 306-37.
Cohen, I. Bernard, The Newtonian Revolution: With Illustrations of the Trans

formation of Scientific Ideas, New York, Cambridge University Press,
1980.
Cohen, Robert S., "Ernst Mach: Physics, Perception and the Philosophy of
Science," in Robert S-. Cohen & Raymond J. Seeger, eds., Ernst Mach: Phy
sicist and Philosopher, Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1970, pp. 126-64.
- 577 -
Craig, Gordon. A., Germany 18661945 (1978), paperback ed., New York, Oxford
University Press, 1980.
Cravens, Hamilton, The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the

Heredity-Environment Controversy, Philadelphia, University of Pennsyl
vania Press, 1978.
Danziger, Kart, "The Social Origins of Modern Psychology," in Allan R. Buss,

ed., Psychology in Social Context, New York, Irvington, 1979, pp. 27-46.
, "The Positivist Repudiation of Wundt," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci.,

15(1979), pp. 205-30.
_____________ , "WundtTs Psychological Experiment in the Light of His Philoso

phy of Science," Psychological Research. 42 (1980), pp. 109-22.
_____________ , "Wundt and the Two Traditions of Psychology," in Robert W.

Rieber, ed., Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology,
New York, Plenum, 1980, pp. 73-88.
, "The History of Introspection Reconsidered," Jour. Hist,. Behav.

Sci., 16 (1980), pp. 241-62.
, "On the Threshold of Will Versus the Science of Mind," in

William R. Woodward & Mitchell G. Ash, eds., The Problematic Science;
Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought, New York, Praeger, 1982, pp. 88-
115.
Decker, Harm ah S., Preud in Germany; Revolution and Reaction in Science 1893-
1907, New York, International Universities Press, 1977.
Dember, William N., ed., Visual Perception; The Nineteenth Century, New York,
Wiley, 1964.
Diersch, Manfred, Empiriokritizismus und Impressionismus; fiber Beziehungen

zwischen Philosophie, Asthetik und Literatur um 1900 in Wien, Berlin
(DDR), Riitten & Loening, 1977.
Dobson, Velma & D. Bruce, "The German University and the Development of Exper
imental Psychology," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 8 (1972), pp. 204-07.
Dorsch, Friedrich, Geschichte und Probleme der Angewandten Psychologie, Bern,

Huber, 1963.
- 578 -
Eckardt, Georg, "Einleitung. Bemerkungen zum Anliegen psychologiehistori-

scher Forschung," in Georg Eckardt, ed., Znr Geschichte der Psychologie,
Berlin (DDR), VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1979, pp. 7-20.
Elmgren, John, Gestalt Psychology: A Survey and Some Contributions, Gote-

borg, Wettergren & Kerbers, 1939.
Engelhardt, Dietrich von, "Die Konzeption der Forschung in der Medizin des
19. Jahrhunderts," in Alwin Diemer, ed., Konzeption und Begriff der
Forschung in den Wissenschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts, Meisenheim a.
Gian, Anton Hain, 1978, pp. 58-103.
Ermarth, Michael, Wilhelm Dilthey; The Critique of Historical Reason, Chicago,

University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Eschler, Erhard, "Wilhelm Wundt und das wissenschaftliche Weltbild seiner

Zeit," Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie, 19 (1971), pp. 1250-65.
Esper, Erwin A., A History of Psychology, Philadelphia, Saunders, 1964.
Farber, Marvin, The Foundation of Phenomenology; Edmund Husserl and the Quest
for a Rigorous Science of Philosophy (1943), 3rd ed., Albany, State Uni
versity of New York Press, 1968.
Farrar, W.V., "Science and the German University System, 1790-1850," in

Maurice Crosland, ed., The Emergence of Science in Western Europe, Lon
don, Macmillan, 1975, pp. 179-92.
Fearing, Franklin, Reflex Action: A Study in the History of Physiological

Psychology (1930), paperback ed., Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. P r e s s , 1970.
Fensch, Dorothea, "Zur Rolle Wilhelm Wundts bei der Institutionalisierung

der Psychologie in Leipzig," in Psychologiehistorische Manuskripte,
Gesellschaft fur Psychologie der DDR, 1977, pp. 60-66.
Ferber, Christian von, Die Entwicklung des Lehrkorpers der deutschen Univer-
sitaten und Hochschulen 1864-1954, Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1956.
Feuer, Lewis S., Einstein and the Generations of Science, New York, Basic
Books, 1974.
Fleming, Donald, "Introduction" to Jacques Loeb, The Mechanistic Conception

of Life, ed. Donald Fleming, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press,
1964, pp. vii-xli.
______________, "Attitude: The History of a Concept," Perspectives in Ameri

can History, I (1967), pp. 287-365.
- 579 -
Flugel, John C., A Hundred Years of Psychology, rev. ed. with D.J. West,
London, Methuen, 1964.
Focht, Mildred, What is Gestalt Theory? New York, Columbia University Press,
1935.
Forman, Paul, "Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists: The

Ideology and its Manipulation in Germany After World War I," Isis, 64
(1973), pp. 151-80.
___________ , John L. Heilbron & Spencer Weart, "Physics circa 1900: Personnel
Funding and Productivity of the Academic Establishments," Historical
Studies in the Physical Sciences, 5 (1975).
Freyhofer, Horst Heinz, "The Vitalism of Hans Driesch," Ph.D. Dissertation,

University of California, Los Angeles, 1979, University Microfilms Order
No. 79-15659.
Gay, Peter, Weimar Culture: The Insider as Outsider, New York, Harper & Row,
1968.
_________ , Freud, Jews and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist
Culture, New Yirk, Oxford University Press, 1978.
Geuter, Ulfried, "Psychologiegeschichte," in Gunther Rexilius & Siegfried

Grubitzsch, eds., Handbuch psychologischer Grundbegriffe, Reinbek b.
Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1982, pp. 824-38.
_________ , "Die Professionalisierung der deutschen Psychologie im National-

sozialismus," Phil. Diss. Berlin, 1982.
_________ , "The Uses of History for the Shaping of the Discipline," Socio
logy of the Sciences Yearbook, vol. 7, Dordrecht and Boston, Reidel,
1983, in press.
Gibson, James J., "The Legacies of Koffka's Principles," Jour. Hist. Behav.
Sci., 7 (1971), pp. 3-9.
Gillispie, Charles Coulston, The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History

of Scientific Ideas, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1960.
Gobar, Ash, Philosophic Foundations of Genetic Psychology and Gestalt Psycho

logy, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1968.
Goldberg, Stanley, "Max Planck's Philosophy of Nature and His Elaboration of

the Special Theory of Relativity," Historical Studies in the Physical
Sciences, 7 (1976), pp. 125-60.
- 580 -
Goldstein, Kurt, The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from

Pathological Data in Man (1934), paperback ed., Boston, Beacon Press,
1963.
Gorsen, Peter, Zur Phanomenologie des Bewusstseinsstromes. Bergson, Dilthey,

Husserl,Simmel und die lebensphilosophischen Antinomien, Boon, Bouvier,
1966.
Graumann, Carl Friedrich, 'Experiment, Statistics, History: Wundt's First

Program of Psychology," in Wolfgang G. Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds.,
Wundt Studies, Toronto, Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 33-41.
Graumann, Heinz M., "Das Verstehen: Versuch einer historisch-kritischen Ein-

leitung in die Phanomenologie des Verstehens," in Heinrich Balmer, ed.,
Die Psychologie des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, Die europaische Tradi
tion, Zurich, Kindler, 1976, pp. 159-271.
Gregory, Frederick, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany,

Boston, Reidel, 1977.
Gregory, R.L., Eye and Brain; The Psychology of Seeing, 2nd ed., New York,
McGraw-Hill, 1972.
, Conceptions and Mechanisms of Perception, London, Duckworth.

1974.
Grossmann, Reinhardt, Meinong, London & Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974.
__________________ , "Structures versus Stets: The Philosophical Background

of Gestalt Psychology," critica: Revista hispanoamericana de filosofia,
9 (1977), pp. 3-21.
Gundlach, Horst, Reiz; Zur Verwendung eines Begriffes in der Psychologie,

Bern, Huber, 1976.
Gurwitsch, Aron, The Field of Consciousness (1957), Pittsburgh, Duquesne

______________, Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, Evanston, North

western University Press 1966.
Habermas, Jurgen, Knowledge and Human Interests (1968), trans. Jeremy J.

Shapiro, Boston, Beacon Press, 1971.
Hagstrom, Warren 0., The Scientific Conwmmjty, New York, Basic Books, 1965.
Hall, Thomas S., History of General Physiology 600 B.C. to A.D. 1900, vol. 2
From the Enlightenment to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1969.
- 581 -
Hamann, Richard & Jost Hermand, Epochen deutscher Rultur von 1870 bis zur Ge-
genwart, 5 vols., Frankfurt a.M., Fischer, 1977.
Hamlyn, David Walter, The Psychology of Perception: A Philosophical F.vamina-

tion of Gestalt Theory and Derivative Theories of Perception, London,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957.
__________________ , Sensation and Perception: A History of the Philosophy

of Perception, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961.
Harndt, Ewald, "Die Stellung der medizinischen Fakultat an der preussischen

Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat zu Berlin als Beispiel fur den Wandel des
Geisteslebens in 19. Jahrhundert," Jahrbuch fur die Geschichte Mittel-
und Ostdeutschlands, 20 (1971), pp. 134-60.
Harrower-Erikson, Molly, "Kurt Koffka, 1886-1941," American Journal of Psycho

logy, 55 (1942), pp. 278-81.
Hartmann, George W., Gestalt Psychology: A Survey of Facts and Principles,

New York, The Ronald Press, 1935.
Hehlmann, Wilhelm, Geschichte der Psychologie, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, Kroner, 1967.
Heidbredder, Edna, Seven Psychologies, New York.. Appleton Century Crofts.

1933.
Heider, Fritz, "Gestalt Theory: Early History and Reminiscences," in Mary

Henle, Julian Jaynes, & John Sullivan, eds., Historical Conceptions of
Psychology, New York, Springer, 1973, pp. 63-73.
Heider, Grace M., "Koffka, Kurt," International Encyclopedia of the Social

Sciences, ed. David Sills, New York, Macmillan, 1968, vol. 8, pp. 435-38.
Helson, Harry, "The Psychology of Gestalt," American Journal of Psychology,

36 (1925), pp. 342-70, 494-526; 37 (1926), pp. 25-62, 189-223.
___________ , "Why Did Their Precursors Fail and the Gestalt Psychologists
Succeed?" in Mary Henle, Julian Jaynes & John Sullivan, eds., Historical
Conceptions of Psychology, New York, Springer, 1973, pp. 74-82.
Henle, Mary, "On Gestalt Psychology," in Benjamin Wolman, ed., Scientific

Psychology: Principles and Approaches, New York, Basic Books, 1965, pp.
276-92.
__________ , "Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)," Year Book of the American Philo

sophical Society, 1968, pp. 139-45.
__________ , "The Influence of Gestalt Psychology in America," in Robert W.

Rieber & Kurt Salzinger, eds., Psychology: Theoretical and Historical
Perspectives, New York, Academic Press, 1980, pp. 177-90.
- 582 -
Hermann, Armin, The Genesis of Quantum Theory 1899-1913, Cambridge, Mass.,

M.I.T. Press, 1971.
_____________ , Max Planck in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Reinbek b.

Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1973.
Herrmann, Theo, "Ganzheitspsychologie und Gestalttheorie," in Heinrich Balmer,

ed., Die Psychologie des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, Die europaische Tra
dition, Zurich, Kindler, 1976, pp. 573-658.
Hesse, Mary B., Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in
the History of Physics (1962), repr. Westport, Ct., Greenwood, 1970.
Hiebert, Erwin, "The Genesis of Mach's Early Views on Atomism," in Robert S.

Cohen & Raymond J. Seeger, eds., Ernst Mach, Physicist and Philosopher,
Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1970, pp. 79-106.
_____________ , "The Methodological Foundations of Mach's Anti-Atomism and

Their Historical Roots," in Peter K. Machamer & Robert G. Turnbull, eds.,
Motion and Time, Space and Matter; Interrelations in the History of Phi
losophy and Science, Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1976, pp.
390-417.
High, Richard, "Does James' Criticism of Helmholtz Really Involve a Contradic

tion?" Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 14 (1978), pp. 337-43.
, "Shadworth Hodgson and William Jamess Formulation of Space

Perception," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 17 (1981), pp. 466-85.
Hochberg, Julian, "Nativism and Empiricism in Perception," in Leo Postman,

ed., Psychology in the Making, New York, Knopf, 1962, pp. 255-330.
_______________, "Organization and the Gestalt Tradition," in Edward C.

Carterette & Morton P. Friedman, eds., Handbook of Perception, vol. 1,
Historical and Philosophical Roots of Perception, New York, Academic
Press, 1974, pp. 179-210.
Hofstatter, Peter R., Psychologie (Das Fischer Lexikon, vol. 6), rev. ed.,
Frankfurt a.M., Fischer, 1972.
Holborn, Hajo, "Dilthey and the Critique of Historical Reason," Journal of

the History of Ideas, 11 (1950), pp. 93-118.
Holton, Gerald, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein,

Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1973.
Holzkamp, Klaus, Sinnliche Erkenntnis: HistorischerUrsprung und gesellschaft-

liche Funktion der Wahmehmung, Frankfurt a.M., Athenaum, 1973.
Hoorn, Willem van, As Images Unwind; Ancient and Modem Theories of Perception,
Amsterdam, University Press of Amsterdam, .972.
- 583 -
Horkheimer, Max, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell

et al., New York, Seabury, 1972.
Hughes, H. Stuart, Consciousness and Society; The Reorientation of European

Social Thought 1890-1930, New York, Knopf, 1958.
Humphrey, George, Thinking: An Introduction to its Experimental Psychology,

New York, Wiley, 1951.
Hunsdahl, Jurgen B., "Concerning Einfuhlung (Empathy): A Concept Analysis of

its Origin and Early Development," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 3 (1967),
pp. 180-91.
Iggers, Georg G., The German Conception of History, Middletown, Ct., Wesleyan
Jaeger, Siegfried, & Irmingard Staeuble, Die gesellschaftliche Genese der Psy
chologie, Frankfurt a.M., Campus, 1978.
___________________________________ , "Die Psychotechnik und ihre gesell

schaftliche Entwicklungsbedingungen," in F. Stoll, ed., Die Psychologie
des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 13, Anwendungen im Berufsleben: Arbeits-, Wirt-
schafts- und Verkehrspsychologie, Zurich, Kindler, 1981, pp. 53-95.
Jankelevitch, Vladimir, Henri Bergson, Paris, Presses Universitaires de Paris,

1959.
Jarausch, Konrad H., "The Social Transformation of the University: The Case
of Prussia, 1865-1914," Journal of Social History, 12 (1979), pp. 609-36.
Johnston, William M., The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History,
1848-1938. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972.
Joncich, Geraldine, The Sane Positivist: A Biography of Edward Lee Thorndike,

Middletown, Ct., Westleyan University Press, 1968.
Kallen, Horace, William James and Henri Bergson: A Study in Contrasting Theo
ries of Life, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1914.
____________ , "Max Wertheimer, 1880-1943," Social Research, 15 (1948), pp.

235-43.
Kanisza, Gaetano, Organization in Vision: Essays on Gestalt Perception,

New York, Praeger, 1979.
- 584 -
Kardos, Ludwig, "Die 'Konstanz' phanomenaler Dingmomente: Problemgeschicht

licher Darstellung," in Egon Brunsik, et al., Beitrage zur Problemge-
schichte der Psychologie: Festschrift zu Karl Buhlers 50. Geburtstag.
Jena, Fischer, 1929, pp. 1-77.
Katz, David, "Georg Elias Muller.,11 Acta Psychologica, 1 (1936), pp. 234-40.
, Gestaltpsychologie (1944), 4th rev. & enl. ed., Basel, Scbwabe,

_
1969; Gestalt Psychology, trans. of 2nd ed., New York, The Ronald Press.
1950.
Kaufman, Lloyd, Sight and Mind: An Introduction to Visual Perception, New York,
Oxford University Press, 1974.
Keiler, Peter, "Isomorphie-Konzept und Wertheimer-Problem: Beitrage zu einer

historisch-methodologischen Analyse des Kohlerschen Gestaltansatzes,
Teil I: Erkenntnistheoretische und seinslogische Implikationen des Iso-
morphie-Konzepts," Gestalt Theory, 2 (1980), pp. 78-112 (English summary,
pp. 109-10); "Teil II: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der Theorie der 'psy-
chophysischen Gestalten - Funktionale Systeme und. Wertheimer-Problem,"
Gestalt Theory, 3 (1981), pp. 93-128 (English summary, pp. 126-27).
Kevles, Daniel J., "Into Hostile Political Camps: The Reorganization of Inter
national f ience in World War I," Isis, 62 (1971), pp. 47-60.
Klein, D.B., A History of Scientific Psychology: Its Origins and Philosophic

al Backgrounds, New York, Basic Books, 1970.
Klein, Martin J., "Mechanical Explanation at the End of the Nineteenth Cen
tury," Centaurus, 17 (1972), pp. 58-82.
Klix, Friedhart, "Hermann Ebbinghaus - Ursprunge und Anfang psychologischer

Forschung an der Berliner Universitat," in Georg Eckardt, ed., Zur
Geschichte der Psychologie, Berlin (DDR), VEB Verlag der Wissenschaf-
ten, 1979, pp. 85-109.
Kliiver, Heinrich, "Contemporary German Psychology," suppl. to Gardner Murphy,

Historical Introduction to Modem Psychology, rev. ed., New York, Har-
court Brace, 1930, pp. 417-55.
_______________, Behavior Mechanisms in Monkeys (1933), paperback ed., Chi

cago, University of Chicago Press, 1961.
Kluke, Paul, Die Stiftungsuniversitat Frankfurt am Main 1914-1932, Frankfurt

a.M., Kramer, 1972.
Kockelmans, Joseph J., ed., "Husserl's Original View of Phenomenological

Psychology," in Joseph Kockelmans, ed., Phenomenology: The Philosophy
of Edmund Husserl and its Interpretation, Garden City, N.Y., Anchor Books,
1967, pp. 418-49.
- 585 -
Kolakowski, Leszek, Die Philosophie des Positivismus (1966), trans. Peter

Laschmann, Munich, Piper, 1971.
Kraus, Oskar, "Biographical Sketch of Franz Brentano," (I9I9), trans. Linda

L. McAlister, in Linda L. McAlister, ed., The Philosophy of Franz Bren
tano, London, Duckworth, 1976, pp. 3-9.
Kuhn, Thomas S., The Stracture of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 2nd ed.,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970.
______________, The Essential Tension; Selected Studies in Scientific Tra

dition and Change, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Ktiklick, Henrika, "Boundary Maintenance in .American Sociology: Limitations

to Academic Professionalization, 1,1 Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 16 (1980),
pp. 201-19.
Kurzweg, Adolf, Die Geschichte der Berliner 'Gesellschaft fur Experimental-

psychologie* mit besonderer Berucksichtigung ihrer Ausgangssituation
und des Wirkens von Max Dessoir, Med. Diss., Free University of Berlin,
1976.
Lakatos, Imre, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Pro

grammes," in Imre Lakatos & Ian Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth
of Knowledge, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 91-196.
Langfeld, Herbert Sydney, "Stumpf's 'Introduction to Psychology,'" American

Journal of Psychology, 50 (1937), pp. 33-56.
Laqueur, Walter, Weimar: A Cultural History 1918-1933, New York, Putnam, 1974.
Leahey, Thomas H., A History of Psychology: Main Currents in Psychological

Thought, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1980.
Leary, David, "The Philosophical Development of the Conception of Psychology

in Germany, 1780-1850," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 14 (1978), pp. 113-21.
___________ , "Wundt and After: Psychology's Shifting Relations with the

Natural Sciences, the Social Sciences and Philosophy," Jour. Hist. Behav.
Sci., 15 (1979), pp. 231-41.
___________ , "German Idealism and the Development of Psychology in the

Nineteenth Century," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 18 (1980),
pp. 299-317.
Leichtman, Martin, "Conceptions of the History of Psychological Systems: An

Examination of Alternative Models of Inquiry and TheirApplication to
the Development of Gestalt Psychology," Ph. D. Dissertation, Clark Uni
versity, 1972, University Microfilms Order No. 72-27362.
- 586 -
Leichtman, Martin, "Gestalt Psychology and the Revolt Against Positivism,"

in Allan Buss, ed., Psychology in Social Context, New York, Irvington,
1979, pp. 47-75.
Lemaine, G., et al., Perspectives in the Study of Scientific Disciplines,

The Hague, Mouton, 1976.
Lepenies, Wolf, "Problems of a Historical Study of Science," in Everett Men

delsohn, Peter Weingart & Richard Whitley, eds., The Social Production
of Scientific Knowledge, Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1977, pp. 55-67.
Lewin, Kurt, "Carl Stumpf," Psychological Review, 44 (1937), pp. 189-94.
Lindenfeld, David, "Oswald ESilpe and the Wurzburg School," Jour. Hist. Behav.
Sci., 14 (1978), pp. 132-41.
________________, The Transformation of Positivism; Alexius Meinong and

European Thought, 1880-1920, Berkeley, University of California Press,
1980.
Linschoten, Johannes, On the Way to a Phenomenological Psychology: The Psy

chology of William James, Pittsburgh,Duquesne Univerity Press, 1968.
Lipton, David R., Ernst Cassirer: The Dilemma of a Liberal Intellectual in

Germany 1914-1933, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1978.
Lorenz, Heinz, "Das BewuBtsein der Krise und der Versuch ihrer Uberwindung
bei Wilhelm Dilthey and Graf Yorck von Wartenberg," Zeitschrift fur Re
ligions- und Geistesgeschichte, 11 (1959), pp. 59-68.
Lorenz, Konrad, Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, trans. Robert Martin,
2 vols., Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1971.
Lowry, Richard, The Evolution of Psychological Theory; 1650 to the Present,

Chicago, Aldine, 1971.
Luchins, Abraham S., "Max Wertheimer," in David L. Sills, ed., International

Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1968, vol. 16,
pp. 52226.
__________________, "The Place of Gestalt Theory in American Psychology: A

Case Study," in Suitbert Ertel, Lily Kemmler & Michael Stadler, eds.,
Gestalttheorie.in der modemen Psychologie, Darmstadt, Steinkopff, 1975,
pp. 21-44.
Lubbe, Hermann, BewuBtsein in Geschichten: Studien zur Phanomenologie der

Subjektivitat. Mach, Husserl, Schapp, Wittgenstein, Freiburg i.Br.,
Rombach, 1972.
Luft, David S., Robert Musil and the Crisis of European Culture, 1880-1942,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980.
- 587 -
Lukacs, Georg, Die Zerstorung der Vernunft (1954), paperback ed., 3 vols.,
Darmstadt, Lucnternand, 1973-1974.
Lundgreen, Peter, '*Forschungsforderung durch technisch-wissenschaftliche Ver-

eine 1860-1914," in Reinhard Rurup, ed., Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft:
Beitrage zur Geschichte der Technischen Universitat Berlin 1879-1979,
Berlin, Springer, 1979, vol. 1, pp..265-82.
______________ , "Differentiation in German Higher Education, 1860-1930,"

in Konrad Jarausch, ed., The Transformation of Higher Learning in Europe-,
1860-1930, Stuttgart, KLett, 1982.
Lundin, Robert W., Theories and Systems of Psychology, Lexington, Hass., D.C.
Heath, 1972.
MacLeod, Roy, "Changing Perspectives in the Social History of Science," in

Ina Spiegel-Rosing & Derek de Solla Price, eds., Science, Technology
and Society, London & Beverly Hills, Sage Publications, 1977, pp. 149-95.
Makkreel, Rudolf A., Dilthey, Philosopher of the Human Studies, Princeton,

Princeton University Press, 1975.
Mailer, J.B., "Forty Years of Psychology: A Statistical Analysis of American

and European Publications 1894-1933," Psychological Bulletin, 31 (1934),
pp. 533-59.
Mardelbaum, Maurice, History, Man and Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Century

Thought, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971.
Mandler, George & Jean M. Mandler, Thinking: From Association to Gestalt,

New York, Wiley 1964.
Mandler, Jean M. & George Mandler, "The Diaspora of Experimental Psychology:

The Gestaltists and Others," in Donald Fleming & Bernard Sailyn, eds.,
The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard University Press, 1969, pp. 371-419.
Manegold, Karl-Heinz, Universitat, Technische Hochschule und Industrie: Ein

Beitrag zur Emanzipation der Technik im 19. Jahrhundert unter besonde-
rer Beiicksichtigung der Bestrebungen Felix Kleins, Berlin, Duncker &
Humblot, 1970.
Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia (1929), trans. Louis Wirth & Edward Shils,
New York, Harvest, 1955.
Marrow, Alfred Jay, The Practical Theorist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin,
New York, Basic Books, 1969.
- 588 -
Marshall, Marilyn E., "Physics, Metaphysics and Fechners Psychophysics," in

William R. Woodward & Mitchell G. Ash, eds., The Problematic Science:
Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought, New Yorkj Praeger, 1982, pp.
65-87.
__________________ , & Bussell A. Wendt, "Wundt, Spiritism and the Assump

tions o Science," in Wolfgang G. Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt
Studies, Toronto, Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 158-75.
Marx, Melvin H., & F.E. Goodson, eds., Theories in Contemporary Psychology,
2nd ed., London, Collier-Macmillan, 1976.
Mason, Stephen F., A History of the Sciences, New York, Collier-Macmillan, 1962.
Matthaei, Ruprecht, Das Gestaltproblem, Munich, Bergmann, 1929.
McClelland, Charles E., State, Society and University in Germany 1700-1914,

Cambridge & New York, Cambridge University Press, 1980.
McCormmach, Bussell, "Academic Scientists in Wilhelminian Germany," Daedalus,

103 (1974), pp. 157-72.
Mehrtens, Herbert, "Social History of Mathematics: Aims, Methods, Problems,"

in Herbert Mehrtens, Henk Bos, & L. Schneider, eds., Social History of
Nineteenth-Century Mathematics, Boston, Birkhauser, 1981.
Mendelsohn, Everett, "The Emergence of Science as a Profession in Nineteenth-

Century Europe," in Karl Hill, ed., The Management of Scientists, Boston,
Beacon Press, 1964, pp. 3-48.
_________________ , "Bevolution and Reduction: The Sociology of Methodological

and Philosophical Concerns in Nineteenth Century Biology," in Yehuda El-
kana, ed., The Interaction Between Science and Philosophy, Atlantic High
lands, N.J., Humanities Press, 1974, pp. 407-26.
_________________ , "The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge," in

Everett Mendelsohn, Peter Weingart & Richard Whitley, eds., The Social
Production of Scientific Knowledge (Sociology of the Sciences, vol. 1),
Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1977, pp. 3-26.
Mendelssohn, Kurt, The World of Walther Nemst: The Rise and Fall of German
Science, London, Macmillan, 1973.
Menze, Clemens, Die Bildungsreform Wilhelm von Humboldts, Hannover, Schroedel,

1975.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Structure of Behavior (1942), trans. Alden L. Fi

sher, Boston, Beacon Press, 1963.
____________________ , Phenomenology of Perception (1945), trans. Colin Smith,

London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962.
- 589 -
Merz, John Theodore, A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century

(1904-1912), 4 vols., repr. New York, Dover, 1965.
Metraux, Alexandre, "Wilhelm Wundt und die Institutionalisierung der Psycho

logie," Psychologische Rundschau, 31 (1980), pp. 84-38.
Metzger, Wolfgang, Psychologie: Die Entwicklung ihrer Grundannahmen seit der

Einfiihrung des Experiments (1941), 4th ed., Darmstadt, Steinkopff, 1968.
_______________ , "The Historical Background for National Trends in Psycho

logy: German Psychology," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 1 (1965), pp. 109-15.
_______________ , "Gestalt", "Gestalten, physische", "Gestaltkreis", "Gestalt-

psychologie", "Gestaltqualitat", "Gestalttheorie", in Joachim Ritter, et
al., eds., Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, Basel & Stuttgart,
Schwabe, 1974, vol. 3, pp. 539-552.
_______________ , "Psychologie zwischen Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften,"

in Heinrich Balmer, ed., Die Psycholgoie des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1,
Die europaische Tradition, Zurich, Eindler, 1976, pp. 27-40.
Miles, T.R., "Gestalt Theory," in Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Phi
losophy, New York, Macmillan & The Free Press, 1967, vol. 3, pp. 318-22.
Miller, Arthur I., "Albert Einstein and Max Wertheimer: A Gestalt Psycholo
gists View of the Genesis of Special Relativity Theory," History of
Science, 13 (1975), pp. 75-103.
Mischel, Theodore, "Wundt and the Conceptual Foundations of Psychology," Phi

losophy and Phenomenological Research, 31 (1970), pp. 1-26.
Mises, Richard von, Positivism: A Study in Human Understanding, Cambridge,

Harvard University Press, 1951.
Misiak, Henryk, & Virginia Staudt Sexton, History of Psychology: An Overview,

New York, Grune & Stratton, 1967.
Muller-Freienfels, Richard, The Evolution of Modern Psychology, trans. W.

Beran Wolfe, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1935.
Mullins, Nicolas C., "A Model for the Development of a Scientific Specialty:
The Phage Group and the Origins of Molecular Biology," Minerva, 10 (1972),
pp. 51-82.
Murphy, Gardner, An Historical Introduction to Modem Psychology, 2nd rev. ed.,

New York, Harcourt Brace, 1930.
- 590 -
Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science; Problems in the Logic of Scientific

Explanation, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961.
Natanson, Maurice, Edmund Husserl, Philosopher of Infinite Tasks, Evanston,

111., Northwestern University Press, 1973.
Neisser, Ulrich, Cognition and Reality: Principles and Implications of Cogni

tive Psychology, San Francisco, Freeman, 1976.
Newman, Edwin, "Max Wertheimer," American Journal of Psychology, 57 (1944),

pp. 429-35.
Nilsson, Ingemar, "Alfred Lehmann and Psychology as a Physical Science," in

Wolfgang 6 . Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, Toronto,
Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 258-68.
Nordenskjold, Erik, The History of Biology, New York, Tudor, 1928.
Oberschall, Anthony, ed., The Establishment of Empirical Sociology; Studies

in Continuity, Discontinuity and Institutionalization, New York, Harper,
& Row, 1972.
ODonnell, John M., "The Crisis of Experimentation in the 1920s: E.G. Boring
and his Uses of History," American Psychologist, 34 (1979), pp. 289-95.
________________ , "The Origins of Behaviorism: American Psychology 1870-1920,"

Ph.D. Dissertation University of Pennsylvania, 1979, University Microfilms
Order No. 7928159.
O Neil, W.M., & A.A. Landauer, "The Phi-Phenomenon: Turning Point or Rallying
Point?" Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 2 (1966), pp. 335-40.
Palermo, D.S., "Is a Scientific Revolution Taking Place in Psychology?" Science

Studies, 1 (1971), pp. 135-55.
Pascal, Roy, From Naturalism to Expressionism: German Literature and Society

1880-1918, New York, Basic Books, 1973.
Passmore, John, A Hundred Years of Philosophy, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books,

1968.
Pastore, Nicolas, Selective History of Theories of Visual Perception: 1650-1950,

New York, Oxford University Press, 1971.
_______________, Reevaluation of Boring on Kantian Influence, Nineteenth

Century Nativism, Gestalt Psychology and Helmholtz," Jour. Hist. Behav.
Sci., 10 (1974), pp. 375-90.
- 591 -
Pastore, Nicolas, "Helmholtz on the Projection or Transfer of Sensation," in

Peter Machamer & Robert Turnbull, eds., Studies in Perception, Columbus,
Ohio, Ohio State University Press, 1978, pp. 355-76.
Perry, Ralph Barton, The Thought and Character of William James, 2 vols., Boston,
Little, Brown, 1935-1936.
Petermann, Bruno, The Gestalt Theory and the Problem of Configuration (1929),
trans. Meyer Fortes, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932.
_______________, Das Gestaltproblem in der Psychologie im Lichte analytischer

Besinnung, Leipzig, Barth, 1931.
Peters, R.S., ed., Bretts History of Psychology, rev. ed., Cambridge, Mass.,
M.I.T. Press, 1965.
Pfetsch, Frank R., Zur Entwicklung der Wissenschaftspolitik in Deutschland

1750-1914. Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1974.
Phillips, D.C., "Organicism in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries," Journal
of the History of Ideas, 31 (1970), pp. 413-32.
_____________ , Holistic Thought in Social Science, Stanford, Stanford Univer

sity Press, 1976.
Pilkington, Anthony Edward, Bergson and His Influence; A Reassessment, Cam

bridge, England, Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Pongratz, Ludwig J., Problemgeschichte der Psychologie, Bern, Francke, 1967.
Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London, Hutchinson, 1972.
, & John C. Eccles, The Self and its Brain, New York, Springer,
1977.
Prentice, W.C.H., "The Systematic Psychology of Wolfgang Kohler," in Sigmund

Koch, ed., Psychology: A Study of a Science, vol. 1, New York, McGraw-
Hill, 1959, pp. 427-55.
Pribram, Karl H., Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Principles
in Neuropsychology, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Frontice-Hall, 1971.
Pyenson, Lewis, & Douglas Skopp, "On the Doctor of Philosophy Dynamic in
Wilhelminian Germany," Informationen zur Erziebungs- und Bildungshistori-
schen Forschung, 4 (1976), pp. 63-82.
__ , "Educating Physicists in Germany circa 1900,"

Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977), pp. 329-66.
Rancurello, Antos, C., A Study of Franz Brentano, New York, Academic Press,
1968.
- 592 -
Rapaport, David, comp., Organization and Pathology of Thought: Selected Sources,

New York, Columbia University Press, 1951.
Rappard, Hans van, Psychology as Self-Knowledge: The Development of the Con

cept of the Mind in German Rationalistic Psychology and its Relevance
Today, Assen, Netherlands, Van Gorcum, 1979.
Richards, Robert J., "Wundts Early Theories of Unconscious Inference and

Cognitive Evolution in Their Relation to Darwinian Bio-psychology,"
in Wolfgang G. Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, Toronto,
Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 42-70.
_________________ , "Natural Selection and Other Models in the Historiography

of Science," in Marilyn B. Brewer & Barry E. Collins, eds., Scientific
Inquiry and the Social Sciences, San Francisco, Josey-Bass, 1981, pp. 37-
76.
Riese, Reinhard, Die Hochschule auf dem Weg zum wissenschaftlichen GroBbetrieb:
Die Universitat Heidelberg und das badische Hochschulwesen 1860-1914,
Stuttgart, Klett, 1977.
Ringer, Fritz K., "Higher Education in Germany in the Nineteenth Century,"

Journal of Contemporary History, 2 (1967), pp. 123-38.
______________ , The Decline of the German Mandarins; The German Academic

Connmmity 1890-1933, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1969.
______________ , Education and Society in Modern Europe, Bloomington, Ind.,

Indiana University Press, 1979.
Robinson, Daniel N., An Intellectual History of Psychology, New York, Macmil

lan, 1976.
Ross, Dorothy, "On the Origins of Psychology," American Sociological Review,

32 (1967), pp. 466-69.
, "The Zeitgeist' and American Psychology," Jour. Hist. Behav.

Sci. 5 (1969), pp. 256-62.
Rotschuh, Karl Edward, History of Physiology (1953), trans. & ed. Guenter B.
Risse, Huntington, New York, Robert E. Krieger, 1973.
Rubinstein, Sergei L., Seia und BewuBtsein: Die Stellung des Psychischen im
allgemeinen ZusaTnmenhang der Erscheinungen in der materiellen Welt (1957),
ed. & trans. Hans Hiebsch, 8 th ed., Berlin (DDR), Akademie-Verlag, 1977.
Russell, W.A., "A Note on Lotze's Teaching of Psychology, 1842-1881," Jour.

Hist. Behav. Sci., 2 (1966), pp. 74-75.
- 593 -
Sander, Friedrich, "Experimentelle Ergebnisse der Gestaltpsychologie," in

Erich Becher, ed., Bericht uber den 10. Kongress fur experimentelle
Psychologie ... 1927, Jena, Fischer, 1928, pp. 23-88.
Scheerer, Martin, Die Lehre von der Gestalt; Ihre Methode und ihr Psychologi-
scher Gegenstand, Berlin, de Gruyter, 1931.
Schelsky, Helmut, Einsanikeit und Freiheit; Idee und Gestalt der deutschen
Universitat und ihrer Reformen (1963), 2nd ed., Diisseldorf, Bertelsmann,
1971.
Schieder, Theodor, "Kultur, Wissenschaft und Wissenschaftspolitik im deut

schen Kaiserreich," in Gunther Mann & Rudolf Winau, eds., Medizin, Na-
turwissenschaft, Techaik und das Zweite Kaiserreich, Gottingen, Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1977, pp. 9-34.
Schroeder-Gudehaus, Brigitte, Deutsche Wissenschaft und internationale Zusam-

menarbeit 1914-1928, Geneva, Dumaret & Golay, 1966.
_________________________ , Les scientifiques et la paix; La Communaute Scien-

tifique internationale aux cours des annees 20., Montreal, Presses Univer-
sitaires du Montreal, 1978.
Schmitt, Wolfram, "Karl Jaspers und die Methodenfrage in der Psychiatrie," in

Werner Janzarik, ed., Psychopathologie als Grundlagenwissenschaft, Stutt
gart,. Enke, 1979, pp. 74-82.
Schorske, Carl E., Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, New York, Knopf, 1980.
Schultz, Duane P., A History of Modem Psychology, 3rd ed., New York, Academic
Press, 1981.
Schwabe, KLaus, Wissenschaft und Kriegsmoral: Die deutschen Hochschullehrer und

die politischen Grundfragen des Ersten Weltkrieges, Gottingen, Muster-
schmidt, 1969.
Schwermer, Josef, Die experimentelle Willenspsychologie Kurt Lewins, Meisen-

heim a. Gian, Alton Hain, 1966.
Seaman, Francis, "Machs Rejection of Atomism," Journal of the History of

Ideas, 29 (1968), pp. 381-93.
Seebohm, Hans-Bernhard, Otto Selz: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Psychologie,
Phil. Diss. Heidelberg, 1970.
Shapin, Steven, "A Course in the Social History of Science," Social Studies of
Science, 10 (1980), pp. 231-58.
, "History of Science and its Sociological Reconstructions,"

_
History of Science, 20 (1982), in press.
- 594 -
Simon, W.M., European Positivism in the Nineteenth Century; An Essay in In

tellectual History, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1963.
Sluga, Hans D., Gottlob Frege, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
Sokal, Michael M., "Graduate Study with Wundt: Two Eyewitness Accounts," in
Wolfgang G. Bringmann & Ryan D. Tweney, eds., Wundt Studies, Toronto,
Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 210-25.
Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduc

tion, 2 vols., The Hague, Nijhoff, 1960.
__________________ , Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry, Evanston,

111., Northwestern University Press, 1972.
Sprung, Lothar, "Wilhelm Wundt: Bemerkenswertes und Bedenkliches aus seinem

Lebenswerk," in Georg Eckardt, ed., Zur Geschichte der Psychologie,
Berlin (DDR), VEB Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1979, pp. 73-84.
Stadler, Michael, "Feldtheorie heute: Von Wolfgang Kohler zu Karl Pribram,"

Gestalt Theory, 3 (1981), pp. 185-99.
Stem, Pritz, The Failure of Illiberalism, London, Allen & Unwin, 1972.
Stichweh, Rudolf, Ausdifferenzienmg der Wissenschaft: Eine Analyse am deut

schen Beispiel, Forschungsschwerpunkt Wissenschaftsforschung, Universi
tat Bielefeld, Report No. 8 , Bielefeld, 1977.
______________ , "Differenzierung der Wissenschaft," Zeitschrift fur Sozio-

logie, 8 (1979), pp. 83-102.
Stocking, George W., Jr., "On the Limits of Presentism' and ,Historicisml
in the Historiography of the Behavioral Sciences," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci.,
1 (1965), pp. 211-18.
Sulloway, Frank J., Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic
Legend, New York, Basic Books, 1979.
Swazey, Judith P., Reflexes and Motor Integration: Sherringtons Concept of

Integrative Action, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1969.
Teuber, Hans Lukas, "Wolfgang Kohler zum Gedenken," Psychologische Forschung,

31 (1967), pp. vi-xiv.
Thomae, Hans, Psychologie in der modernen Gesellschaft, Hamburg, Hoffmann &

Campe, 1977.
Thomson, Robert, The Pelican History of Psychology, Harmondsworth, Penguin

Books, 1968.
- 595 -
Topfner, Kurt, Gelehrte Politiker und politisierende Gelehrte: Die Revolu

tion von 1918 im Urteil deutscher Eochschullehrer, Gottingen, Muster-
schmidt, 1970.
Toulmin, Stephen, Homan Understanding; The Collective Use and Evolution of

Concepts, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1972.
Turner, R. Steven, "The Growth of Professorial Reserach in Prussia, 1818 to

1848: Causes and Context," Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences,
3 (1971), pp. 137-82.
, "Hermann Helmholtz and the Empiricist Vision," Journal of

the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 13 (1977), pp. 48-58.
________________, "Helmholtz, Sensory Physiology and the Disciplinary Develop

ment ofGerman Psychology," in William R. Woodward & Mitchell G. Ash,
eds., The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought,
New York, Praeger, 1982, pp. 147-66.
Uttal, William R., The Psychology of Mind, Hillsdale, N.J., Erlbaum, 1978.
Vernon, Magdelen D., The Psychology of Perception, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books,

1962.
Vierhaus, Rudolf, "Bildung," in 0. Brunner, W. Conze & R. Kosselleck, eds.,

Lexicon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Stuttgart, Klett,
1972, vol. 1, pp. 508-51.
Vondung, Klaus, ed., Das wilhelminische Bildungsbargertum: Zur Sozialgeschich-

te seiner Ideen, Gottingen, Vandenhoeck' & Ruprecht, 1976.
Vorwerg, Manfred, "Wilhelm Wundt und die Stellung der Psychologie im System
der Wissenschaften," Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 185 (1975), pp. 337-50.
Wachsmuth, Richard, Die Grundung der Universitat Frankfurt, Frankfurt a.M.,

Englcrt und Schlosser, 1929.
Wallraff, Charles F., Philosophical Theory and Psychological Fact: An Attempt

at Synthesis, Tuscon, Ariz., Univerity of Arizona Press, 1961.
Watson, Robert I., Sr., The Great Psychologists: Aristotle to Freud (1963)j
4th ed., Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1978.
Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918, 3rd ed., Gottingen,

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977.
- 596 -
Weimer, Walter B., "The History of Psychology and its Retrieval from Historio
graphy: I. The Problematic Nature of History, Science Studies, 4 (1974),
pp. 235-58.
________________, Notes on the Methodology of Scientific Research, Hillsdale,

N.Y., Erlbaum, 1979.
Weingart, Peter, Wissensproduktion:. und soziale Struktur, Frankfurt a.M.,

Suhrkamp, 1976.
Weinhandl, Ferdinand, "Zum Gestaltproblem bei Aristoteles, Kant und Goethe,"

Beitrage zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 4 (1927), pp. 68-172.
Weizsacker, Viktor von, Natur und Geist (1954), 3rd. ed., Munich, Kindler,
: 1977.
Wellek, Albert, "Stumpf, Carl," in David L. Sills, ed., International Ency

clopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1968, vol. 15, pp.
350-51.
Wertheimer, Michael, "Relativity and Gestalt: A Note on Albert Einstein

and Max Wertheimer," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 1 (1965), pp. 86-87.
_________________ , A Brief History of Psychology (1970), rev. ed., New York,

Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979.
_________________ , "Max Wertheimer, Gestalt Prophet," Gestalt Theory, 2

(1980), pp. 3-17.
_________________ , "Historical Research: Why?" in Josef Brozek & Ludwig

Pongratz, eds., Historiography of Modern Psychology, Toronto, Hogrefe,
1980, pp. 3-23.
Wesley, Frank, "Masters and Pupils Among the German Psychologists," Jour. Hist.
Behav. Sci., 1 (1965), pp. 252-58.
Wettersten, D., "The Historiography of Scientific Psychology: A Critical

Study," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 11 (1975), pp. 15771.-
Whitley, Richard, "Cognitive and Social Institutionalization of Scientific

Specialties and Research Areas," in Richard Whitley, ed., Social Pro
cesses of Scientific Development, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974,
pp. 69-95.
, "The Establishment and Structure of the Sciences as Repu

tational Organizations," in Norbert Elias, Herminio Martins & Richard
Whitley, eds., Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies (Sociology of
the Sciences, vol. 6 ), Dordrecht & Boston, Reidel, 1982, pp. 313-57.
Willey, Thomas E., Back to Kant: The Revival of Kantianism in German Social
and Historical Theory 1860-1914, Detroit, Wayne State University Press,
1978.
- 597 -
Williams, L. Pearce, The Origins of Field Theory, New York, Random House, 1966.
Wilshire, Bruce, William James .and Phenomenology: A Study of The Principles

of Psychology*, Bloomington, Tnd.3 Indiana University Press, 1Q6S.
Witte, Wilhelm, "Zur Geschichte des psychologischen Ganzheits- und Gestalt-

begriffes," Studium generale, 5 (1952), pp. 455-64.
Woodward, William R., "Fechners Panpsychism: A Scientific Solution to the

Mind-Body Problem," Jour. Hist. Behav. Sci., 8 (1972), pp. 367-86.
, "The Medical Realism of Rudolf Hermann Lotze," Ph. D.

Dissertation, Yale University, 1975, University Microfilms Order No. 76-
14,576.
__________________ , "From Association to Gestalt: The Fate of Hermann Lotze*s

Theory of Spatial Perception, 1846-1920," Isis, 69 (1978), pp. 5/2-82.
__________________ , "William James* Psychology of Will: Its Impact on Ameri

can Psychology," in Josef Brozek, ed., Explorations in the History of
American Psychology, Lewisburg, Pa., Bucknell University Press, in press.
__________________ , "Toward a Critical Historiography of Psychology," in

Josef Brozek & Ludwig Pongratz, eds., Historiography of Modern Psychology,
Toronto, Hogrefe, 1980, pp. 29-67.
__________________ , "Wilhelm Wundt: Vicissitudes of Experiment, Theory and

System," in William R. Woodward & Mitchell G. Ash, eds., The Problematic
Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought, New York, Praeger,
1982, pp. 167-97.
Woodworth, Robert S., & Mary Sheehan, Contemporary Schools of Psychology,

New York, Ronald Press, 1964.
Yaroschevskii, Mikhail. G.. Psychologie im 20. Jahrhundert, trans. Ruth Kos-

sert, Berlin (DDR) ' Verlag Volk und Wissen, 1975.
Young, Robert M., "Scholarship and the History of the Behavioral Sciences,"
History of Science, 5 (1966), pp. 1-51.
_______________, Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century: Cere

bral Localization and its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier, Oxford,
The Clarendon Press, 1970.
_______________, "The Historiographic and Ideological Contexts of the Nine

teenth Century Debate on Mans Place in Nature," in M. Teich & R.M. Young,
eds., Changing Perspectives in the History of Science, Dordrecht, Reidel,
1973, pp. 344-438.
- 598 -
Zloczower, Avraham, Career Opportunities and the Growth of Scientific Dis

covery in Nineteenth Century Germany, Jerusalem, Hebrew University, 1966.
Zuckennan, Carl B., & Hans Wallach, "Wolfgang Kohler," in David L. Sills, ed.,
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan,
1968, vol. 8 , pp. 438-42.
NAME INDEX
Ach, NarziB, 58, 196 f., 202, 205 Boas, Franz, 281-82
Adams, Henry, 171 Boltzmann, Ludwig, 86, 131,
Adler, Friedrich, 127 171 ff., 445
Althoff, Friedrich, 6, 38-40, 47 Boring, Edwin G., xvi f.
Anschutz, Georg, 74, 216' Born, Max, 490, 502-03
Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie, Brentano, Franz, 31 ff., 51, 53,
25, 67, 359 54, 143, 160, 224, 228, 434
Aristotle, 206 Brod, Max, 247, 488, 504
Arleth, Emil, 247 Brunswig, Albert, 167
Aubert, Hermann, 24 Buber, Martin, 505
Avenarius, Richard, 85, 121-23, 129 Buhler, Karl, on thought, 198, 199 f.,
260, 347, 500, 509, on Gestalt
Bain, Alexander, 112, 205 n.
perception, 227, 326-27, Koffka*s
Baudelaire, Charles, 171
critique of, 329, response to
Becher, Erich, critique of Driesch
Kohler's anthropoid work, 402-03
185-86, on Gestalt problem, 236-
40, 357 f., 424, 464, critique of Cassirer, Ernst, 46, 74, 177, 227 f.,
Kohler, 485, 487 n. 242
Becker, Erich, 507 Cattell, James McK., 192 f.
Ben David, Joseph, 2, 24 Clausius, Rudolf, 171
Benussi, Vittorio, 222, on Gestalt Cohen, Hermann, 74
perception, 340-42, on Miller-Lyer Cohn, Jonas, 258
illusion, 223 f., 226, Koffka*s po Collins, Randall, 2
lemic against, 343-58, response to Comte, Auguste, 31
Buhler, 227, 342-43, response to Cornelius, Hans, versus atomism, 213,
Koffka, 359-60, review of Koffka- 276, 369, on Gestalt qualities,
Kenkel, 338-40, on apparent motion, 215, 219-20
334 ff. Croce, Benedetto, 85
Bergson, Henri, 85, concept of con Curie, Pierre, 474
sciousness, 136-40, compared with
James, 142-43, compared with
Driesch, 188-89, cited by Kohler,
232, 432, 457, cited by Kebkel,
335
599 -
- 600 -
Danziger, Kurt, xxix Eucken, Rudolf, 75, 140

Darwin, Charles, 131, 198, 379 Exner, Sigmund, 24, 233, 247,
Descartes, Rene, 449 285-86, 293
Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 327
Dewey, John, 350-51 Faraday, David, 170
Dilthey, Wilhelm, role in Stumpf's Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 17, 110
appointment, 39, 40, 46, 64, Fichte, Gottlob, 91
concept of psychology, 36-38, Fischer, Aloys, 79
146 ff., 156-57, ref. 243, 248, Frege, Gottlob, 157 f., 498
311, 349 Fuchs, Wilhelm, 303
Dodge, Raymond, 193-94

Gad, Johannes, 247
Driesch, Hans, 86, psychovitalism,
Geiger, Moritz, 63, 77, 217
182 ff., neovitalism, 187-89
Geisteswissenschaften. Die, 327
Drobisch, Moritz Wilhelm, 17
Gelb, Adhemar, 46, on Gestalt
DuBois-Reymond, Emil, 91, 109, 183
qualities, 229 f., 257, in
Durr, Ernst, 23, 252
Frankfurt, 276, on space and
Duhem, Pierre, 175
time perception, 304-05, 476
Durkheim, Emile, 22
Gibbs, J. Willard, 171
Ebbinghaus, Hermann, 24, 25, 28, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 122,
on memory, 130 ff., organicism, 476, 478-79
135 f., polemic against Dilthey, Golgi, Amadeo, 100, 230
151-52, on Gestalt qualities, Gross, Haas, 247, 249
228 f.
Haeckel, Ernst, 182, 183
Ebert, Friedrich, 503
Harden, Maximilian, 77
Edinger, Ludwig, 307-08, 351, 425
Hartmann, Eduard von, 94 n., 183,
Ehrenfels, Christian von, on Gestalt
432
qualities, 210-12, 280, 423,
Hegel, G.W.F., 84, 86
Gestalt criteria, 437 ff., on sex
Heider, Fritz, 360
ual ethics, 247-48
Hellpach, Willy, 73
Einstein, Albert, 127, 175, and Wert
Helmholtz, Hermann von, xxxii,
heimer, 490 f., 501, on academic
12, 17, 24, 337, 449 f., and
freedom, 502-03
sensory physiology, 87-93, 97,
Erdmann, Benno, 38, 111, 185, 193-94
99, 100, 107, 109, 111, 115, and
- 601 -
Helmholtz, Hermann von (cont.), and James, William, xxxiv, 51, 54-, 85
Weber-Fechner law, 110, cri 11 1 , conception of conscious
ticized by James, 141, 147, ness, 140-46, radical empiri
vowel theory, 266-67 cism, 144 f., and Husserl, 161
Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 17, 112,
Jaspers, Karl, 155 f.
147, 207
Jennings, Herbert Spencer, 188, 379
Herbertz, Richard, 407
Joachim, Joseph, 58
Hering, Ewald, xxxiif.,24,and sensory
Journal of Animal Behavior, 411, 420
physiology, 87, 93-100, 100 f.,
Jung, Carl Gustav, 53
color perception, 104, 107, 109,
isomorphism of, 456, 549 Kafka, Gustav, 405
Hering-Hillebrand horopter deviation, Kant, Immanuel, 91, 206
102 Kappers, C.U. Ariens, 407
Hertz, Heinrich, 173-74, 295 Katz, David, 63, on color perception,
Hillebrand, Franz, 82 f., 102 f. 104-07, 166, on animal perception,
Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawney, 393 ff. 347, 416, 421
Hoffding, Harald, 191 ff. Kenkel, Friedrich, 330, 333-35
Hornbostel, Erich von, 46, 58, 248, Kirchhoff, Gustav, 118, 175
254, 257, 278 Klein, Julius, 249
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 4 Kohler, Franz Eduard, 264-65
Hume, David, 50, 51, 144, criti Kohler, Ulrich, 264
cized by Husserl, 160, by Ktilpe, Kohler, Wolfgang, 46, 63, 73-74,
204, by Koffka, 262, by Kohler, 81, 83, 140, 142, 179, 186, bio
448 f. graphy, 264 ff., early research
Hunter, Walter S., 420, 421 in acoustics, 266 ff., habili-
Husserl, Edmund, 6 , 51, critique tation and teaching in Frankfurt,
of experimental psychology, 67-69, 299-300, critique of the "constan
75, Logical Investigations, 86, cy hypothesis", 315 ff., appoint
143, 157-69, 188, 243, 422, 499, ment to direct research on Tenerife,
lectures in Gottingen, 105, and 374 ff., "intelligence tests" on
P.F. Linke, 364, 367 anthropoids, 384-401, response
to war, 406-07, and Robert M.
Jaeger, Siegfried, xxv-xxvi Yerkes, 408-13, studies in ani
Jaensch, Erich Rudolf, 74, 104, mal perception, 413-27, natural
328 f.
Jakobsen, Roman, 518
- 602 -
Kohler, Wolfgang (cont.), tionism in neurophysiology,

philosophy of, 430-88, concept i232 ff., and Koffka, 258, on
of isomorphism, 450-59, ap motion perception, 286
proach to theory construction, Krueger, Felix, 216, 317, 321
440 ff., 466 ff., appointment Kulpe, Oswald, 23, 25, 27, 28, 46,
to Berlin, 506 ff. and institutionalization of ex
Konig, Arthur, 24 perimental psychology, 70 ff.,
Koffka, Emil, 255 75, 79, 80, 83, systematic psy
Koffka, Friedrich, 255 chology of, 127 ff., on think
Koffka, Kurt, 46, 56, 57, 63, 73, 81, ing and abstraction, 189, 195 ff.,
83 , 97, 140, 186, biography, 255 ff., 497, and Kurt Koffka, 260, 263
early research on rhythm, 256 ff., Kuhn, Thomas, apcii, xjctI, 135, 519
assistant in Freiburg, 258-60, re
search in Wurzburg on imagery, 261- Lakatos, Imre, 317
63, in Frankfurt, 263, 276, in Gie- Lamprecht, Karl, 77 f., 169
en, 263, 330 ff., first attempts Lange, Friedrich Albert, 16
at system, 307 ff., on descriptive Langfield, Herbert, 257
and functional concepts, 310-15, Laplace, Pierre, 444
on transformation in perceptual theo Lashley, Karl S., 420-21

ry, 328, research program in appa Lehmann, Alfred, 191
rent motion, 331 ff., polemic vs. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 112
Benussi, 343 ff., polemic vs. Linke, Leichtman, Martin, xxi-xxiii
364 ff., on difference threshold, Lenin, Vladimir, 120
36871, on experience and memory, Lspenies, Wolf, xadi
372-74, reponses to criticism of Ge Levin, Kurt, xv n.3, 46, 60 f.

stalt theory, 479, 482, 483, 486, Liebig, Justus, 14
reaction to Die physischen Gestalten, Lindvorsky, Johannes, 403-04, 500

488 Linke, Paul F., on motion percep
Koffka, Mira (nee Klein), 259, 261 tion, 287, 292, critical ex
Kollvitz, Kathe, 249, 501 change with Wertheimer and Koffka,
Korte, Adolph, 330, 336-38, laws for 361-66
apparent motion, 336 f. Lipps, Theodor, 24, 68, on Gestalt
Kries, Johannes von, 24, on nativism qualities, 216 f., on Muller-
and empirism, 107 ff., "zone" theo Lyer illusion, 224
ry, 108, 455, critique of associa- Locke, John, 278
- 603 -
Loeb, Jacques, 180-81 Meinong, Alexius, 56, 86, 125 f.,

Lorentz, H.A., 445 162, 243, on Gestalt qualities,
Lotze, Rudolf Hermann, 8-5, 10, 32, 212 f., on tonal fusion, 214, theo
33, 35, 100, 505, 507, on genesis ry of objects, 220 ff.
and validity, 35, 500, on local Mensbrugghe, van der, 474
signs, 32, 90, 100, 507 Messer, August, 201, 203, 263
Meumann, Ernst, 23, 25, 27, 28, 66
Mach, Ernst, 49, 50, 56, 85, 138,
(see also Archiv fur die gesamte
on contrast, 96, isomorphism,
Psychologie)
96 f., 99, 545 ff., epistemology
Meyerson, Emile, 175
and philosophy of science,^ 117-21,
Mill, John Stuart, 31, 50, 59, 86,
123-27, 129 f., 313, 447 f., 469,
90, 115, 492, 493-94, 499
473-74, compared with James, 141
Mills, Wesley, 381
42, criticized hy Boltzmann, 173,
Monist League, 180
compared with Hertz, 174, con
Morf, Heinrich, 275
troversy with Planck, 175-79, cri
Morgan, Conway Lloyd, 379 f. (see
ticized by Kulpe, 203, on form
also Lloyd Morgan's Canon)
perception, 207-09, criticized
Muller, Aloys, 186
by von Kries, 233-34, system con
Muller, Georg Elias, 2, 10, 11, 24,
cept, 235 f., acoustical research,
25, 28, 38, 54, 63, 71, 74, 104,
265, interval colors, 270, on mo
111, 129, 133 f., 507, on tonal fu
tion sensation, 286
sion, 92 f., on psychophysical
Marbe, Karl, on psychology and philo
axioms, 100-02, 241, 454, 480,
sophy, 64, 77, 80, 82, on thought,
theory of abstraction, 220, color
196, 199, in Wurzburg and Frank
theory, 267, 460 f., on difference
furt, 252, 263, 275, on motion
threshold, 369, quality series, 453
perception, 287
Muller, Johannes, 12, 88, 453
Martin, Lilien, J., 63
Munsterberg, Hugo, 134, 258
Martius, Gotz, 103,. 327
Musil, Robert, 56 ff.
Marty, Anton, 228, 247
Masaryk, Thomas, 489 Nagel, Ernest, 445 f.
Mauthner, Fritz, 259-60, 477 Nagel, Willibald, 256
Mayer, A., 198 Natorp, Paul, 74, 75
Maxwell, James Clerk, 170, 173, 444, Die Natttrwisseuschaften, 367
468 f., 471 Nemst, Walther, 101, 265, 440, 465
- 604 -
Ogden, Robert M., 261 Schapp, Wilhelm, 167

Ohm, G.S., 458 Scheler, Max, 217
Orth, J., 198 Scherer, Wilhelm, 48
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 112
Pastore, Nicolas, xx-xxi
Schorske, Carl, 86 f.
Panlsen, Friedrich, 46, 248
Schultz, Joseph, 247
Peano, G., 280
Schumann, Friedrich, 11, 25, 58,
Perry, Ralph Barton, 145
59, 248, 263, 440, in Frankfurt,
Pfungst, Oskar, 382 .
80, 275, on reading, 194, on
Philosophische Studien, 17, 21
Gestalt qualities, 217-19, on
Phonogramm-Archiv, 44 f., 376
illusions of judgment, 225,
Pick, Arnold, 247
on observation, 303-04
Planck, Max, 86, 169 ff., 265, 376,
Schwann, Theodor, 12
445, 471, critique of Mach, 175 ff.
* Selz, Otto, 326, 423, 500
rational realism, 177, 477-78
Semon, Richard, 238
Plateau, Joseph, 111, 285
Sherrington, Charles Scott, 230,
Poincare, Henri, 175
231, 425
Poppelreuter, Walter, 103 f., 325
Sigwart, Christoph, 111
Popper, Karl, 500
Simmel, Georg, 46, 78 f.
Preyer, William, 24
Society for Experimental Psychology,
Pribram, Karl, 487
20, 25, 27, 70, 81, 135, 303,
Psychologische Forschung, 510
304 f., 325
Sokolowsky, Alexander, 382
Rahn, Carl, 353
Sommer, Robert, 25, 330
Ramon y Cajal, Santiago, 100, 230
Revesz, Geza, 421 Spencer, Herbert, 131, 147, 198
Rickert, Heinrich, 64 f., 7J, 258 Spengler, Oswald, 520
Riehl, Alois, 46, 75, 111, 164, 256 Spinoza, 177, 247, 479
Romanes, George John, 379 Spranger, Eduard, 154-55
Rothmann, Max, 374 f., 383 Stahlin, Wilhelm, 261

Staeuble, Inningard, xxv-xxvi
Roux, Wilhelm, 181 f.
Rubin, Edgar, 461-63 Stem, Georg, 249
Rupp, Hans, 49, 257, 306, 490 Stem, William, 28, 67
Stout, George Frederick, 394
Samson, Albert, Foundation, 375, 427,
Stumpf, Carl, xv, xx, xxx, xxxiv, 6,
430, 507
11, 24, 25, 63, 67, 68, 82, 83, 111,
- 605 -
Stumpf, Carl (cont.), 134, 146, 149, Weber, Ernst Heinrich, 17

162, 163, 166, 169, biography, Weber, Wilhelm, 32
30 ff., appointment to Berlin, 37 ff., Werfel, Franz, 489
conception of psychology, 45 ff., Wertheimer, Max, 46, 61 f., 63,
philosophy of science, 49 ff., 430- 81, 83, 165, biography, 245 ff.,
31, psychical functions, 51 f., research in psychology of testimo
training of scientists, 53 ff., and ny, 249 ff., research on alexia,
Helmholtz, 92-93, and Mach, 49-50, 253, on number concepts, 277-84,
126, interactionism, 186, on tonal on motion perception, 284-95,
fusion, 213-14, on Gestalt qualities, and birth of Gestalt theory, 295-
229, and Koffka, 256, 260, 368, 302, habilitation in Frankfurt,
tone color, 268-69, and Kohler, 299-300, law of Pragnanz, 306,
268 ff., 378 , 506 ff., and Wertheimer, cited by Koffka, 366, 370,
61 f., 249 cited by Kohler, 435, 451, 476,
Stuntpf, Helix, 490 Jewish identity, 246-47, 504-05,
political views, 488-89, 501 ff.,
Teuber,' Eugen, 377
on productive thinking, 491-500,
Thumwald, Richard, 278
on philosophy, 498 ff., 504-05
Thorndike, Edward Lee, 380-81, 396-97,
Wertheimer, Wilhelm, 246
398, 400, 432
Whitley, Richard, xxvii f.
Titchener, Edward Bradford, 111, 127,
Willmann, Otto, 247
critique of Buhler, 200, 202, criti
Windelband, Wilhelm, 65, 75, 140,
cized by Koffka, 310-11, 353
156, 189
Twardowski, Kasimir, 221
Witasek, Stefan, 222, 223, 226
Vaihinger, Hans, 136 Wittfogel, Karl August, 501
Verwom, Max, 231 f. Wundt, Wilhelm, -iand institutionali
Virchow, Rudolf, 12 zation of psychology, 1, 15-23,

24, 25, 27-28, 38, 40, 45, 59,
Wagner von Jauregg, T., 253 60, 66, 67, 71, 75-77, 82, 510,
Waldeyer, Wilhelm, 230, 375 ff.," 383-84, system of psychology, 109-16,
406-07, 412, 429 118, 127-29, 147 f., 241 f.,
Wartensl^ben, Gabrielle Grafin von, on recognition, 191, versus
30C-. Buhler, 200, assimilation theo
Watson, ..ojn B., 82, 420 ry, 372
Watt, Henry J., 197, 252 Wurzburg School, 189, 196 ff., 497
- 606 -
Yerkes, Robert M., 376 f., 408-13,

420-21
Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 24, 185,

212, 248, 271, 273
Zeller, Eduard, 38
Ziehen, Theodor, 129
Zollner, Carl Friedrich, 17
Die Zukunft, 77
Zwicker, Jacob, 247
Zwicker, Rosa, 246
SUBJECT INDEX
abstraction, 197, 497 chance, 396, 432-33

academic freedom (see freedom) charge, 441, 445
acoustics, 34, 89, 265 ff., 490 clang colors, 269 f.
affect, 389 color, as given, 167i theory of,
afterimages, 287, 292, 476; 101, 104 ff.
negative, 286 complex, 250, 252-53
alexia, 253 compounds, mental, 145
analysis, 330, 353, 446 concepts, descriptive and functional,
anisotropy of visual space, 125, 310 ff.
141, 452 connection, experienced, 148
anthropoids, research on, consciousness, 67 f., 309, as flow,
part 3, sect. 4 passim 140, intentional model of, 160,
anthropomorphism, 390 251,281,349 , 357, lived, 136 f.,
apperception, 112, 128 as process, 112, 115, relational
apprehension, styles of, 340 ff. 403, unity of, 33, 54, 143, as
assimilation, 372 whole, 423, 448
assistantship, 11 f. "conscious disposition" (BewuBt-
associationism, 129, 133, 147, seinslage), 196
205, 232, challenge to, 195 ff., constancy, color, 96, 98, 104, 106,
232 ff. 414, size, 414
attitude, 198 constancy hypothesis, 346, 368, 369
449, critique of, 316 ff., test
Berlin, culture, 249, 255; psycho of, 416 ff.
logical institute, 38 ff., 506 ff., contrast, 96, 355
university, 4 conventionalism, 121
Bildung, xiv, 5 corpuscles, and continua, 170-71
body, as percept, 125 creative synthesis, 115-16, 147
boundary conditions, 446 f.
daily life, observation of, 54
box stacking, 387, 410, 411
democracy, 503-04
brain, holistic theory of, 142, 455 ff.
description, evidence of, 166
causality, psychical, 19, 113 ff. determining tendencies, 198, 263
centering, 282 (see also re-center detours, as intelligence test, 384,
ing) 386 ff.
- 607 -
- 608 -
developmental history, see evolu "experience recall" (Rundgabe),

tion 199, 251-52
differential equations, partial,
444, 467-68 fictionalism, 136
disciplines, development and insti field, electromagnetic, 442
tutionalization of, xxvi ff., field theory, 170, 446
7 f. figure and ground, 460 f.
disposition, 373 form, 251 ff., 329, characteristic
duration (duree). 137 of living substance, 357, and

function, xxxix, 349, percep
elan vital, 139, I8 8 tion of,in animals, 420 f., pre
Ehrenfels criteria, 437 ff. ponderance of, 287 f., problems
electron theory, 445 , 468 of, in neurophysiology, 230 ff., in
elements, conscious, 114 f., 147, psychology, 206 ff-, solution
in neutral monism, 119 f. to in Gestalt theory, 296 f.
empathy, 63-64, 380 formalism, 162, 280
empiricism, radical, 144 f. freedom, academic, 6 , 502
empirism, xviii, 87, 107 f., 373 functionalism, xxxix, 53, 146, 350 ff.
energy, 186 functions, algebraic, 444, gnostic,
entelechy, 187 307-09, psychical, 51 ff., 313,
entropy, 171, 471 ff. and form, 349, structural, 427 ff.
ethics, sexual, 248 fusion, tonal, 36, 92 f.
ethnocentrism, 277
ethnography, 277 genesis, and validity (Genese und Gel-
ethnomusicology, 44 tung), xlii , 35, 257 f., 499, 500
evolution, 147, 307 f., 425, geometrism, 449-50
emergent, 188 Gestalt, apprehension, 345, category,
exemplar, xxxvii, 135, 285 280, 433, criteria (see Ehrenfels
explanation, physiological, 289 f., criteria), laws, 305 f., 355, 448,
and understanding, 37 theory, birth of, 275 ff., 299-302,
experience (Erlebnis), 308, 331 f., 306, emergence and early develop
ment of, part three passim, and
immediate, 113, past, influence
of, 372 f., 415 f., as structured functionalism, xxxix, 350 f.
Gestalten, both objects and relations,
whole, 146, total, 37o
451, physical, 433, 435, 440 ff.,
- 609 -
Gestalten (cont.), mathematical isomorphism, psychophysical,

treatment of, 444, 466 ff., quasi Mach's, 97, Kohlers, 453 ff.,
a priori character of, 467, compared with Herings and Mach's,
strong, 443, weak, 443, real, 459
348, 358, status of, 352
gnosis (see functions) James-Lange theory, 144
grouping, 217, 257
kinetic theory, 171 f., 471 f.
habilitation, 9 knowledge-interests (Erkenntnis-

hearing (see acoustics) interessen), 400
hermeneutics, 154
laboratories, psychological, 1-2
history, 494, 519
language, 259, 518 f.
horopter, 102
learning, animal, 379 ff., percept
idealism, Kantian, 9, critical, ual, 393 f., relational,
188, logical, 177, romantic, 422 ff.
445 f., subjective, 119 Lehrfreiheit, 8
identity, impression of, 287, 292 Lloyd Morgans canon, 425-26
images, 260 ff., of extrasensory ori local signs, 32, 90, 100, 506
gin, 342 logic, "pure", 158 f., 161, 163,
impressionism, 127 Aristotelian, 491,
individual, theory of, 520 and theory of knowledge, 498 f.,
individuality, types of, 154 Kohler's attitude toward, 439
industrialization, 66
master-student relationship, 10-11
inner eye, 98, 456
maximum-minimum problems, 471 ff.
insight, xxxix, 391 f., 405
mechanics, developmental, 181-82
intelligence, animal, 379 ff.
mechanism, in biology, 180 f., in phy
intentional model (see consciousness)
sics, 88, 169 ff., in neuro
interaction, retinal, 95, 97
physiology, 230 ff.
interaetionism, 186 (see also psy
memory, 130, 372 f.
chovitalism)
memory colors, 98
internationalism, 489
metaarithmetic, 280
interval color, 270
metaphysics, empirical, 9, rejec
introjection, 121
tion of, 138, revival of, 140
introspection, 20, 59, 198, 199
mind, active, 91, 144
intuition, 138-39
moment, figural, 163 f.
- 610 -
monism, neutral, 119 f. parallelism, empirical, 123 f.,

morphology, causal, 181 141, psychophysical, 184,
motion, apparent, 274 ff., 285 ff., 239, 488
as sensation, 285, alpha, beta, parsimony, principle of, 379 f.,
gamma,lambda, 334 f., 336 402 (see also Lloyd Morgan's ca
multiple choice method, 409-10 non)
music, primitive, 254 part, concept of, 439
perception, theory of, 159 f.,
nationalism, 489
327 ff., animal, 413 ff., of
nativism, 33, 87, 108, f., 373 f.
form (see form) depth, 413, of
naturalism, in philosophy, 496 ff.
relations, 416 ff.
natural science, 31 f., method of,
pedagogy, 155
55, 367 ff.
personality, 150, 154 ff., 301
natural selection, 380
phenomenalism, 316, 324, heuristic,
Naturphilosophie, 9, 110
94, ontological, 119, transfor
neopositivism (see positivism)
mation of, xxxvi
nervous system, 132
phenomenology, experimental, 36,
neuron theory, 100, 231
58, 273, transcendental, 69, 168,
new brain (Neoencephalon), 307
as descriptive psychology, 103 f.,
nonsense syllable, 130
159, 168, as connection of psy
number, concept of, 276 .
chology and philosophy, 166
objects, theory of, 162, 221, 363 phi phenomenon, 289 f., 295, 353,
359, 364
observation, conventions in, 303-05,
356, freedom of, 321 (see also philosophy, institutionalization of
self-observation) in Germany, 4-5, Kantian, 91,
observer, role of, 395, 400 social role of, 155, natural,
old brain (Paleoencephalon), 307, 189, chair in Prankfurt, 275-

76, lectures in, 300, in life,
351
504
organicism, 133, 135 f.
organism, 132, and environment, physicalism, 485
348 ff. physics, mechanistic, 169 ff.,
organization, in brain, 99, 455 ff. Newtonian, 88, phenomenological,

118, 172 f., 469, and philoso
panmorphism, 364-65 phy, 431, and psychology, 92
paradigm, xxvii, 134- f., 1 90 physiology, sensory, 87 ff.
- 611 -
positivism, 117 ff., logical, 124 psychophysical axioms, 101, 454

Husserl's critique of, 158 f., psychophysics, 110 f.
and realism, 312-13, 479 ff., psychovitalism, 184 f., 239
Kohler's critique of, 468, re
volt against, 85, transformation quality series, 419
of, 86 quantum hypothesis, 173
Prague circle, 488

radical empiricism (see empiricism)
pre-established harmony, 481
real objects, status of, 480-81
Pragnanz, law (tendency), 306, 370, 476
realism, critical, 50, 195 f.,
proception, 167
201 ff., 365, 468, logical,
professors, in Germany, status of, 5,
162, rational, 177, 477-78, 479
9, political views, 6, 501
recentering, 493 ff.
proportion, impressions of, 326
recognition, 191 ff.
projection theory, 456 f.
relations,reality of, 50-51, 144,
psychologism, 111, 158 f.
perception of, 416 ff.
psychologist's fallacy, 140 f.
relativism, cultural, 281
psychology (experimental), applica
relativity, law of, 111, theory
tions of, 28, American, 82, 146,
of, 176 n.
in Berlin, 38-62, comparative,
research programmes, 317 f.
part three, sect. 4, passim, con
resistance length, 458
ception of, in Mach, 124, Avena-
retinal image, 99, 456
rius, 123, Wundt, 113, Kilpe, 128,
retroception, 167
connection to physiology, 25, dis
rhythm, 256 ff.
illusion with, 56-57, empirical, 31,
role hybridization, 2
and epistemology, 34 f., 36, 159, in
science, aesthetic versus techno
Frankfurt, 80, 275, institutionali
cratic style of, 399, versus
zation of, part one, esp. sects. 1,
amateurism, 382-83, as con
3-5, 7, journals, 17 f. ..laboratories
necting appearances, 120, idea
(see laboratories), legal, 249 ff.,
listic reaction against, 85,
and logic, 165, opposition to, 64ff.
funding for in Germany, 7 f.,
organization of., 25 ff., and philoso
freedom of (see academic free
phy, 75 ff., "physiological", 17, 18,
dom) , social history of, xxiii ff.,
and psychical research, 20 f., sensory,
as tinderstanding nature, 478
93, in Wurzburg, 71, 80, as a young
scientific community, 27, 134 f.
science, 343, 434 second law (of thermo dynamics),
171 471 ff.
- 612 -
Seele, as factor in nature, 183 f. segregated, 447, somatic field

"seen objects", 9^ ff 4-80-81 as, 452
self-observation, 59, 273 (see also
phenomenology, experimental) tachistoscope, 58, 274, 288, 330
sensation, critique of, 353, of di task (Aufgabe).
rection, 125, counting of, 128 total (Gesamtaufgabe), 326,
sensationalism, 129, 132 f., 148, 400 redefinition of, 354
size, apparent, 103 teaching, and research, unity of,
short circuit analogy, 293, 340 4-5, as means of innovation,
social behavior, in ar>es, 389 8 f.
socialization of scientists, 60 theory, construction, 331, 347 , 358,
solipsism, 120, 481 and description, 393, 400,
soul, and body, 132 f. and practice, 15, 48 f., 66-67
space, perception of, 32 f., 305, and thermodynamics (see second law)
time, 117 thinking, productive, 491 ff.,
specific sense energies, 88, 111. reproductive, 326
spirit, objective, 154 thought, imageless, 197, 201, psy
statics, naive, 387 chology of, 195 ff.
state of affairs (Sachverhalt) 33, threshold, 310, 367 ff.
162, diagnosis of (Tatbestandsdia- time, consciousness of, 166 f., lived
gnostik), 250 ff. (see duree), perception of, 305,
statistics, social, 131 sense of, in anthropoids, 394,
stimulus, 331, 338, 347 ff., 482-83, as variable in Gestalt theory,
as releaser, 99 394, 486, 519
stream of thought, 142 ff. tone color, 286 f.
structure, consciousness of, 148 ff., tone variator, 58
152-53, natural, 442 f. tools, use and making of, 386 ff.
struggle for existence, 134 touch, 306, 359

trial and error method, 381
sum, 438 f.
tropisms, 180-81
symmetry, functional, 458, and regu
truth, experience of, 161
larity, 474
"System C", 123 unconscious conclusions (interfe
systems, eauipotential, 183, physical, rences) , 90
440 ff., optic sector as, 455 ff., unconscious, philosophy of, 94, 432
universities, Germany, 3-15
- 613 -
vision, theory of, 80

vitalism, 187 ff. (see also
psychovitalism)
voluntarism, 112
vowel qualities, 266 ff.
Weber's law (Weber-Fechner law),

110, 465-66
whole and part, 163 f. (see also
Ehrenfels criteria)
will, 112, 113, 144, 147
Wissenschaft, xxx, 5, 503-04
world picture, in physics, 175 ff.
world view, as philosophical goal,
212, 505
Young-Helmholtz color theory, 89,

108
Zeitgeist, xvii, 1-2

zone theory, 108, 455
\\
V

Ash - The Emergence of Gestalt Theory - Experimental Psychology in Germany, 1890-1920 - PHD Thesis

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Título original

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Ash - The Emergence of Gestalt Theory - Experimental Psychology in Germany, 1890-1920 - PHD Thesis

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

INFO RM ATIO N TO USERS

The following explanation o f techniques is provided to help clarify markings or

2. When an image on the film is obliterated w ith a round black mark, it is an

4. For illustrations that cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by xerographic

Ash, Mitchell Graham

THE EMERGENCE OF GESTALT THEORY: EXPERIMENTAL

Harvard University PhJD. 1982

The undersigned, appointed by the

have examined a thesis endtled

THE EMERGENCE OF GESTALT THEORY:

EXPERIM ENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN GERMANY 1 8 9 0 -1 9 2 0

presented by Mitchell Graham Ash

candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and hereby

Typed nan D o m ld ..F .l.e m iB .g ..../

Mitchell Graham Ash

The Department of History

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

All rights reserved.

Existing accounts of the work of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and

of Gestalt theory as a reaction to inadequacies in then-current psycholo

gical theories. In contrast to them, this dissertation sets the origins

of Gestalt theory in a broader social and intellectual context, and thus

of experimental psychology in that country.

The social and institutional background of Gestalt theory is present

ed in part one. Experimental psychology in Germany was institutionalized

as a specialty of philosophy. During their training under Carl Stumpf at

the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin, Wertheimer, Kohler

philosophical problems. However, leading philosophers argued that this

It also faced a scientific identity problem, the dimensions of which

the challenge of Machiaa positivism in physics and philosophy, the mecha

nism-vital ism controversy in biology, the revolt against positivism in

philosophy, the tension between "physiological" and "psychological" cate

gories in sensory psychology, and the difficulties posed by the problems

of thought and form.

Part three describes the Gestalt theorists' response to this com-

epistemology, immanent structuralism, and his model of science, which

united phenomenological observation and a hypothetical-deductive mode of

heimer's model to problems in perception and animal learning. Finally,

Kohler extended Wertheimer's epistemology to the external world in Die phy-

sischen Gestalten. The Gestalt theorists tried not to separate psychology

from philosophy, but to transform psychology so that it could fulfill the

philosophical tasks set for it in Germany while retaining scientific methods.

The dissertation is based in part upon the records of the Berlin

psychological institute in the Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Merseburg, DDR,

correspondence of Wolfgang Kohler in the archives of the Akademie der Wis-

various locations in the United States.

Betty Meltzer Loeb

This dissertation has taken a long time to prepare, and so I have

plete list would be longer than the dissertation.

Work on this project has been supported by a Krupp Foundation Fel

Fulbright-Kommission, Bonn, and a stipend from the Stiftung Luftbruckendank

Studies in American History, Harvard University. Many thanks to all of

these donors for their generosity.

The staffs of the archives and libraries listed in the bibliography

all provided expert assistance, but an especially good feeling remains in

memory for the friendliness and competent helpfulness of John Popplestone,

versity of Akron library. Thanks as well to the staff of the interlibrary

ing my constant badgering with such good grace.

her joy in living in the process. Prof. Michael Wertheimer allowed me

sations we have had have been a genuine pleasure for me.

flourishing band of scholars in the history of the behavioral sciences for

welcoming me into their midst with preprints, reprints, excellent discus